


Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day

by awed_frog



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Castiel Is So Done, Castiel's True Form, Crack Treated Seriously, Dean is Bad at Feelings, Declarations Of Love, Existential Crisis, F/M, Hot Tub Sex, M/M, Obnoxious French Title, Sam is a Sweetheart, Sirens, Some Japanese Folklore, Will Probably End with Sex in a Hot Tub, and also, sort of, update, yep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-23 01:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6100813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awed_frog/pseuds/awed_frog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean looks at it, he sees Cas, and he's <em>not</em> happy about it.<br/>When Sam looks at it, he sees Jess, which is even <em>more</em> unfair and fucked up.<br/>And when Cas looks at it - hell, who knows what Cas is even thinking? Dean is <em>not</em> asking him, because he really doesn't care - like, at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Dean Throws Up and Sam Uses Too Many Emojis

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to **1940sdeancas** for the awesome idea - siren-like creature exposes TFW's actual priorities - which you can find here:
> 
> http://1940sdeancas.tumblr.com/post/120804513921/1940sdeancas-okay-but-what-about-an-episode
> 
> And also: this story sort of got a mind of its own, and became way darker than I intended it to be. Watch out for some very bad childhood memories and general Winchester misery.

When Dean pushes the diner door open, the first thing he sees is Sam’s smile, which means he immediately feels the need to barf again.

God, but Sam is a smug _bastard_.

Dean remains on the threshold for a second, holding a fist against his mouth, and then he takes a few wobbly steps towards Sam’s booth.

“Good morning,” Sam shouts, cheerfully, and Dean almost recoils.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he says, and then he grabs Sam’s cup - empty.

“Beautiful weather, isn’t it?” Sam insists, in that same happy and loud voice.

Dean winces.

“Look, you win,” he says, trying to focus on the cup in front of him to stop the room from spinning. “Can you just -”

He makes a vague gesture which implies shutting up, leaving, or, quite possibly, dropping dead.

“What? Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“ _Sammy_ ,” Dean growls, and then he has to swallow the rest of his sentence back inside his mouth because it tasted like whiskey and bile and oh, boy.

“Anything for you, sugar?”

With a huge effort, Dean looks up and smiles at the middle-aged waitress.

“Our breakfast special is the three-egg omelet with fresh -”

“Just coffee, please. Black,” Dean forces out, because whatever that fresh thing is, it’s already making a new wave of nausea course through his entire body.

“Right away.”

Sam relaxes back into the booth, pushes his own plate aside (a fruit salad, from the looks of it - there’s still a couple of watermelon cubes floating in a yellow sauce) and keeps gloating, because that’s who he is: an evil, evil fucker. Quite possibly adopted, in fact, because it’s not possible that any brother of Dean’s would be so very -

“So, you were saying?”

“Urgh.”

“About me being right, I mean.”

“Just - drop it, okay?”

The waitress comes back, and when she sees the look on Dean’s face, she leaves the whole pot of coffee in front of him as well as a clean cup and pats his arm.

“Cheer up, sweetie. Things are never that grim,” she says, and that could be the biggest understatement of all times, considering they barely escaped their second (third?) apocalypse only a few weeks ago and are now trying to pin down a supernatural serial killer.

She _does_ mean well, though. Dean sort of nods and then pours himself a cup of coffee. It smells hot and crispy and very, very black, which means Dean's stomach could actually remain inside his body for another few hours at least. 

Sam watches him as he drinks, a cold, uncharitable expression on his face.

“Look, so you can’t keep up with twenty-something truckers anymore - just make your peace with it. It’s not the end of the world,” he says, just this side of scoffing, and Dean makes the mistake of shaking his head and the whole room spin around him.

“One foot in the grave, Sammy,” he says, closing his eyes. “One foot in the grave.”

Because of his monster hangover, his voice is even deeper and rougher than usual, and that turns the careless statement into a sort of prophetic bullshit. Dean winces, tries again.

“Any news from Cas?”

Something shifts on Sam’s face.

“No. But I’m sure he’ll call any day now.”

Dean gulps down the rest of his coffee, pours himself another cup.

“I don’t mind him in the Bunker,” he says. “It’s this voyage of self-discovery crap I’m worried about.”

And it’s true, sort of. After that big show-down in New Orleans, Cas had sort of taken a holiday, and he’d been very vague about it. 

Well: he’d been very vague to _Sam_ about it.

With Dean, he’d been pretty straightforward.

“I’m staying,” he’d said, his blue eyes huge on his pale and bloodied face, and, God, he’d never looked more handsome or more angel-like - the silver blade still in his hand, half-forgotten now that victory had crashed down upon them; his hair windswept, his trench coat torn to shreds by Lucifer’s blows and the explosion of his own Grace from his human body when the battle had turned into something Sam and Dean had had no choice but to hide from.

“I’m staying,” he’d said again, because Dean had had no answer to that, “but only if you want me here.”

“I - of course I want you here, man,” Dean had said, and Cas had looked ever fiercer.

“That’s not what I mean,” he’d answered. “I can see inside your heart, Dean. The question is, can you?”

And then Cas had sort of - well, not disappeared, exactly, but he’d gone to find Sam, had told him he would catch up with the two of them. That he needed some time away. To think, or some shit.

Sam had put it down to the mess of that final battle with Amara - whatever else she’d been, Amara had also been the closest thing to God Cas had ever seen, and casting her off the face of the Earth - not to mention killing Lucifer - had been far from easy. 

“He’ll be back,” he’d said, clapping Dean on the shoulder and missing the point by a fucking mile.

Because, well.

And it’s not like Dean doesn’t want to - to -

It’s complicated, is all.

“So, what are we looking at?” he says, ignoring Sam’s _You can tell me anything_ face, and he half turns Sam’s computer towards him.

Except there’s no research on there - there’s a full Skype window instead, and Dean can barely read a couple of lines -

_When can I see you again?_

_Do you *want* to see me again?_

\- peppered with an embarrassing quantity of emoticons before Sam snatches the computer back to his side of the table.

“That Eileen?” Dean asks, neutrally, and the satisfaction of seeing Sam wrongfooted is almost enough to make his stomach settle.

(Although, this is officially something he’ll never do again: vodka shots competitions, so long and goodbye.)

“No. Yes. It’s not what you think,” Sam stammers, and then, for good measure, he closes the laptop, and that doesn’t look illicit or suspicious at all.

“God, you’ve talked to her _twice_ ,” says Dean, and he tries to act disgusted about it, because how can Sam even be like this - how can he still hope to have a normal life, or think either of them _deserves_ one?

“I’m not _marrying_ her, okay? It’s called being friends,” says Sam, but he’s blushing so much his skin is probably hotter than the cup of coffee Dean is still nursing in his cold fingers.

“Right. Because that normally works out so _well_ for us.”

“Dean,” Sam starts, but there’s nothing after that; he look down at the table instead, half annoyed and half miserable.

“Also, hey, I’m no expert, but sending one of those hearty-eyed emoji to a friend - is this what you kids do nowadays?”

“She’s a good hunter.”

This is the worst thing Sam could have said, because, just like that, Dean has a flash of memory about the beginning of it all - of himself, holding Sammy and watching the house burn. Only this time it’s not Dad running out of the house - it’s Sam, and -

“Yeah, well,” he starts to say, but then the nausea rises up in his throat again and this time Dean stands up. “Be right back,” he says, wobbling towards the bathroom.

It’s a mess, is what it all is, he thinks, vaguely, as he pushes the door open and reaches for the sink. Because love - love makes you vulnerable. Love gets your partner killed. Love leads to children, to a house, to a goddamn _dog_ \- and that’s stuff that can get burned to the ground, all of it.

They’re better off alone. No way around it.

Dean splashes some cold water on his face, but when he straightens up and looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see rightful conviction, or even some kind of contentment. He sees resignation instead. And a naked, almost obscene longing.

Which is absurd, because at this point Dean doesn’t even know if Cas is coming back, and if he is - if he is -

With a curse, Dean passes his hands on his wet face, then through his hair.

It's what it is. No point whining about it.

Feeling only marginally better, he walks back to Sam and finds him staring out of the diner, his face looking like one of those blue computer screen - Dean actually wonders (briefly, because he’s a solidly rational person) if he’ll need to turn him off and then on again.

“Hello?” he says, waving a hand in front of Sam’s face. 

Sam blinks, then turns to look at him, very slowly. 

“I -” he says, and Dean goes from irritated to slightly worried to raw panic in one second flat.

“Hey - Sammy, look at me - what the _hell_?”

“Do you think,” starts Sam, and then he blinks, visibly changes tack. “Do you think _Lucifer_ may still be alive?”

“What? No!”

“Can I bring you boys anything else?”

Sam is almost startled by the waitress’ voice. He straightens up, looks around him as if he’s forgotten where they are - he takes in the ordinary diner, the couple of pensioners sitting two booths behind them (the only other customers, because it is, after all, ten in the morning on a damn Wednesday, and normal people have jobs and families and things to do). Dean sees his hand going for a weapon - Sam doesn’t like to walk around with guns, but there’s always a knife hidden in the belt, and the blade is long enough to stab this pleasant woman in front of them right through the throat, and Sam looks -

“No, we’re fine - great,” Dean says, and then he moves, in what must be the most unsubtle gesture in the universe, until he’s standing between his brother and the waitress.

Mercifully, the woman takes the hint and walks away.

“Sammy?”

Sam lets his hand fall, shakes his head.

“I - sorry. I think I didn’t get enough sleep, or something.”

Yeah. This from the guy who spends his life insisting Dean is the one not discussing stuff; holding back. 

_Right_.

“Okay,” he says, slowly, and then he hesitates - he wants to bring up Lucifer, okay, because they never talked about that and Sam is clearly off his rocker, but at the same time, well. “So, the case? Did you find anything?”

Seemingly with a huge effort, Sam relaxes, opens his laptop again as Dean falls down in the booth in front of him.

“I’m not even sure we _have_ a case,” he says. “Could be burglaries gone wrong.”

He chatters on, something about missing jewelry and busted windows, but Dean is not listening - he looks at his brother instead, wonders if he’ll ever manage to give Sam some shot at a normal life - he sure ain’t getting one himself, but Sammy - Sammy -

But, yeah. As if.


	2. In Which Nothing Is Accomplished

The next time Sam gets a brain freeze, they’re in the local library. It’s not a big place, and definitely not the best stocked library Dean has ever seen, but it does have a super boring archive with literally thousands (okay, maybe more like nineteen) cadastral maps, and Sam had wanted to check those out, so.

“Flip you for it?” Dean had said, as they’d walked down into the dusty room, and Sam had managed to look pretty fed up even though he’d still been a bit green around the gills for some reason.

“Double the manpower, half the time,” he’d said, and then he’d walked forward in that determined way of his and had started to get folder after folder down on the formica table.

After two hours of useless reading, Dean had gone upstairs to grab more coffee (and also, well, to check his phone, because they had no reception down there and Cas could totally call, okay?, even if he hadn’t called for the past two weeks).

And it must be because he’s thinking about Cas - which, again, no one can fault him for, because it isn’t normal for Cas to disappear that long - or, rather, it _is_ normal, but Dean doesn’t have to like it, okay? - that Dean suddenly sees a familiar head of messy hair disappearing around a tall shelf.

“Cas?” he calls, dumbstruck, but the man doesn’t stop.

Dean runs after him, getting coffee all over himself in the process, but when he gets to the end of the room (after having been yelled at by two separate librarians, because _No liquids in the reading area!_ ), the man has disappeared.

Which means it wasn’t Cas, Dean tells himself firmly, trying to get the brown stain off his shirt with a paper towel, because Cas, no matter his other faults, and specifically his stubborn, pig-headed unwillingness to just fucking understand what Dean has been trying to tell him for years without actually saying a single word, would never run away like that.

Still, he’s pretty pissed when he walks back to the room, and seeing Sam stare into space like someone has hit him over the head with a saucepan does nothing for his mood.

“Anything?” he barks, and Sam jumps. 

He turns to look at Dean, but he doesn’t say anything at first. Then, very slowly, he gets his knife out of the belt and puts it on the table between them.

“Cut me,” he says, all nice and normal, as if -

“Excuse me?”

“I need to - come on.”

Sam rolls up his sleeve and turns his arm over, offering it to Dean.

“Are you taking crazy pills, or something?”

“I need to know this is _real_ ,” says Sam, firmly, but he does lower his eyes, which means he knows, on some level, that this is batshit insane and Dean is right to be mad.

“So do it yourself. I’m not _cutting_ you, for fuck’s sake. What’s next? Mixing blood and swearing to be best friends forever?”

Sam looks back at him and clenches his jaw.

“I need to know this is real,” he insists. “Please.”

He picks up the knife, offers it to Dean, handle first.

And Dean takes it from his hand.

“Why?” he asks, sitting down.

He’s still holding the stupid paper towel, now stained with coffee and half in tatters; he pushes it inside his jeans pocket with a frown, then flips the knife around, sticking it in the table with a forceful thrust, right between Sam’s open fingers.

Sam is a badass, of course, and he doesn’t even flinch. Or maybe he’s so far gone he doesn’t react because he thinks it’s all a dream. With him, you just never know.

“I’ll do it, okay?” Dean says, a bit annoyed. “But tell me why first.”

Sam looks at him, then away.

“I saw Jess,” he says, after a full minute of silence, and whatever Dean was expecting, that was so _not_ it.

“Jess - _that_ Jess?” he asks, and Sam pulls a bitch face to rival all bitch faces.

“Yes,” he says, his voice dripping acid. “ _That_ Jess. And I know she’s not - I know she’s dead. Just do it, will you?”

Dean knows Jess’ death was not on him, but still, he’s always felt responsible. If he hadn’t gone to look for Sam - if he hadn’t needed his brother back with such pathetic desperation -

Grimly, he grabs Sam’s wrist with his left hand; but, as he’s about to get the blade out of the wood, something stills his hand. If Sam thinks he’s being dogged by Lucifer again - if Sam thinks Lucifer is walking around him, pretending to be his dead girlfriend, then what if - Jesus.

They need to be certain, here, because Lucifer is dead, and yet they haven’t actually seen him die - the whole thing had been so bright and powerful, looking at it would probably have melted their eyes right off their skulls -

But Cas had been sure.

“Are you still messaging Cas?” he asks, suddenly anxious.

“Yes,” says Sam curtly, hand still open on the table.

He looks curiously at Dean, as he always does whenever the Cas topic comes up, because this is normally Dean’s task - to update Cas on their whereabouts and stuff - but Dean ignores him.

“And he’s still not answering?”

“No. But he did say he wouldn’t. And, Dean, if -”

“Lucifer is _not_ back,” says Dean, firmly, and Sam sits up a bit straighter.

“I’m not saying he is,” he says, clearly trying to sound sane.

(As if.)

“What about Jess - was she - like a ghost, or something?” Dean asks.

“No,” says Sam, a bit diffidently. “She was - ghosts are transparent.”

“Yes, thank you, Potter,” says Dean, thinking it over; and then he looks up, grins at the look on Sam’s face. “What? I read.”

“Yeah. _Playboy_ , mostly.”

Dean shrugs.

“Hey, Kerouac wrote for _Playboy_. And Vonnegut. So I like to keep up with fine literature - sue me.”

Since his life isn’t miserable enough, he suddenly remembers a heated conversation he had with Charlie - something about, who would have won in a duel between a normal wizard - Ron, maybe - and the Mountain -

_Wizards have actual magic, though._

_Yeah, but if the Mountain had protective armor -_

_There is no proof such things even exist!_

_That red fucker, what’s his name -_

_Was immortal or something. No protective weapons of any kind._

_Yeah, okay, but come on - the fucking_ Mountain _! That guy is twice as big as any wizard._

 _Why are men always obsessed with size? Harry defeated an actual_ dragon _, I don’t think it's a question of -_

_Now you’re cheating - we’re not talking about Harry, we’re talking about -_

The thing had been in fits and starts, because Dean had been texting her during a hunt and sometimes there would be a longish pause between the messages (mostly because he needed to get blood off himself, although one time he’d actually been tied down on a table when he’d felt his phone ping - he’d smiled, then, even if it hurt like a son of a bitch, because he’d been sure that was Charlie, and that she’d have sent him some quote to set their argument - some meta from tumblr about magic wands and physics or some bullshit), but still, Dean had felt -

Because, well, Charlie had been the only friend he’d ever had.

No that there hadn’t been other people Dean had cared for - Jo and Ellen and Kevin and Richie and Ash - but Charlie had been the only one he’d told stuff to. Charlie had been the one he’d shared a bed with that one time at the Bunker, and it hadn’t even been a decision of any kind - Sam had just looked weird, that evening, and hadn’t been drinking at all, and Cas - who knows what Cas even thinks about, half the time - but Charlie knew how to have fun - Charlie had drunk him under the table, and then they’d sort of pushed each other towards the bedrooms and by the time they’d been in front of Dean’s door, they had bypassed sleepiness and gotten to a sort of silly mood instead - there had been tickling involved, and a quick and brutal pillow war, and then -

Dean never knew this could be had. He never knew it was possible to share your bed with someone and just be - like this. Relaxed and comfortable and happy. Of course, he never felt he had to try and flirt with Charlie, that would have been stupid, and even though they hadn’t seen each other all that much they’d still kept in touch - those stupid messages, and the occasional email - Charlie inviting him over to larping conventions, and even, sometimes, sending him idiotic _Buzzfeed_ posts ( _12 Times Tom Hiddleston Was Too Hot to Handle_ ) with some kind of stupid comment - _This came up on my dash - wasted on me, but maybe you can find a use for it? ;)_ \- because Charlie had _known_. Dean hadn’t told her, not formally, anyway, but Charlie had known all the same. Hell, even Richie hadn’t known, not fully, not the whole truth of it - _I’m not fanook, okay? This doesn’t mean anything_ , he’d said, before yanking Dean’s jeans off - because with Richie, it had been just something hunters do, because hunters, like soldiers, live in a separate world, and most often a world of men, and sometimes you still stink of blood no matter how many showers you’ve taken, and you’re both frightened and exhilarated and _what the fuck did I just do_ because, man, killing a werewolf or whatever is never easy, and in those moments, this is what you need - fast, rough sex with someone who can take it. So, no, Richie hadn’t known. They’d laughed about it, afterwards, and it had never happened again.

But Charlie -

And that evening, Dean had told her all about it. And most things about everything, actually. After a while, he’d turned towards her in the half darkness and pushed his nose into her side as he talked and talked and talked like he’d never talked to anyone before.

And Sam - Dean loves him to bits, but Sam doesn’t get it.

(Of course, Charlie had told him, more than once, that the simple reason Sam doesn’t get it is that Dean doesn’t want him to; because Dean doesn’t talk to Sam, not really; but, well. That's hardly fair.)

“Here,” says Dean, brushing the memory aside; and then he picks up the knife and cuts into Sam’s arm.

“Ouch!”

“Hey, you asked for it!”

“Yeah, maybe you enjoyed it a bit too much. It _hurts_.”

“For fuck’s sake - walk it off, okay?”

Sam scoffs and looks down at his ruined arm.

“You’re still here,” he says, sounding as if he’s actually disappointed, “so I guess you’re real.”

“Gee, thanks. Can really feel the love there.”

“It’s not that.”

Sam reaches for his jacket, takes a clean gauze out of the inner pocket.

“Yeah. Are you sure you were awake, though?”

And here comes the bitch face.

“Oh, come on. Wouldn’t be the first time you fell asleep on the job.”

“It happened _once_ ,” says Sam, his voice now so cold Dean can see actual icicles coming out of his mouth.

“Yeah, and that ghost broke my arm, remember?”

“I was _twelve_. Let it go already.”

“I’d told you to get some sleep before we headed out, but no, Mr Grown-up had an essay to finish and never mind -”

“Oh my _God_ , Dean.”

Sam looks about twenty years younger like this - pale and aggrieved and clutching a bloody gauze against his arm.

Dean smiles at him, then gets the keys of the Impala out of his pocket.

“Last one to the motel pays for lunch,” he says, backing off towards the stairs with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Sam looks at him incredulously, then gestures at the dozens of folders and maps and things they’ve been going through.

“What - that’s - I can’t just _leave_ these here! That woman upstairs specifically told me -”

“Hey, sucks to be you,” Dean says, starting to turn away, and he hears Sam’s splutter.

“Dean, the motel is six block away, don’t you _dare_ -”

“Steak sub for me, please.”

Ignoring Sam’s curses - he was always too much of a goody-goody for his swearing to be interesting, anyway - Dean leaves him there and walks out of the library (he smiles and simpers at the librarians, because they’re probably not finished in here and you never want a librarian to hold a grudge against you); as he reaches the Impala, though, his superficial good mood fades away. There’s something he’s forgetting, he’s sure of it. In fact, he has a feeling he should _know_ what this thing is - there’s a memory there, a case they’ve worked before. When he gets into the car, though, he still hasn’t figured it out, and now he’s distracted, because Cas is being annoying again ( _No new messages_ , the robot voice of his phone has the fucking nerve to say); and so he turns the heating on - the sky is heavy with unfallen snow - and then he waits for his kid brother, because this may not be Lucifer, but it’s sure as hell nothing good, and Sam may bitch and scoff and rolls his eyes, but Dean has never let him down.

Or rarely, anyway.


	3. In Which Sam Kisses the Wrong Person and Two Hearts Are Broken

Steak sub really wasn’t the brightest idea Dean's ever had, because, well, puking your brains out in the morning and then having a big, greasy lunch - that shit was perfection when he was in his twenties. Now, not so much. As he stares out of the window and tries to keep the damn thing in his stomach, he even considers the idea of watching what he eats a bit more, and maybe take a leaf out of Sam’s book and try a salad from time to time (no pun intended).

Pushing the blasphemous thought aside, he crushes the sub’s paper in his hand and throws it into the wastepaper basket.

“Three points,” he says, gleefully, when the thing goes in with a soft thud.

“Yeah, I hardly think so,” says Sam, without even raising his head from the thick book in his lap. “That wasn’t even ten feet.”

“Technically, I’m still drunk, so that was awesome.”

“Technically, you’re an idiot. Hey, what about a shape-shifter?”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“We’ve been over this. A shapeshifter would take the cash, if anything. This guy took random objects - jewels, a roll of tinfoil, balls of twine, one stuffed toy - if it’s a shifter, it’s a _psychotic_ shifter.”

“Like all the shifters we’ve met, you mean.”

Sam has a point, but Dean is only half focused on the conversation. He’s fiddling with Sam’s phone - the password is always, always _Bones25_ \- and scrolling through the messages Sam sent Cas.

 _Hey Cas, hope your holiday is going well_ , the first one reads. It was sent more than a week ago, which means Sam waited only a few days before trying to contact Cas, which in turn means Dean is _not_ paranoid and pathetic if he worries about Cas. Not at all. It’s the done thing, and this proves it.

 _We may have a case_ , says the second one. _Three dead at a ski resort_.

Yeah, that was a bit optimistic, considering it’s actually the middle of November and there’s not a single snowflake in sight. Also, they’re not staying in the _actual_ ski resort - a picture perfect little town with more snowshoes rental places than streetlamps - because the hotels there are fucking expensive (view on Mount Whatever, jacuzzi in every room, and quite possibly hot chocolate tubs). No, they’re staying in the shittier town thirty miles away, the one which looks normal - like a desolate place in the middle of nowhere and not Santa Claus’ butthole.

And Dean is totally _not_ bitter about it. 

_Victims not related_ , Sam wrote. _Bizarre objects missing. In one of the cases, a neighbor insisted he’d seen his mother’s best friend coming out of the house on the night of the murder - we checked, the woman’s been dead for twenty years_.

The next text, embarrassingly, just says, _Where are you? Dean’s worried sick about you_.

(And that is _not_ true. Dean may be _slightly_ concerned - at the very most.)

The other two are much less personal.

 _If you want to pop in, we’re in Alexandria, Vermont_ ; and then: _We’re staying until the end of the week, I guess_.

That was on Monday night, and today’s Wednesday. Cas has his wings back now, so he could come in any time. Right now, for instance.

Dean tosses the phone away before he can be tempted to look at Sam’s messages to Eileen - Sam would never, never forgive him - and checks the window again. Same empty parking lot; same white sky, just this side of snowing.

“Still, if he’s a shifter, he’s probably long gone,” Sam says, sounding like he’s proving some kind of point after a lengthy explanation, and Dean finds he has no idea as to what the conversation is even about. 

“Yeah,” he says, and then stands up, because now he’s nauseous again and maybe some fresh air is the way to go.

“Hey - where are you going?”

“Just getting more coffee,” Dean says, vaguely, shrugging on his jacket, and it’s not even a lie, because once he’s outside he actually starts to walk towards the Gas-N-Sip on the corner. 

It’s only when he actually _gets_ there that he realizes this is exactly the kind of place Cas used to work in, and God, he _so_ doesn’t need this today. 

_I can see inside your heart_ , Cas had said. _The question is, can you?_

Dean pushes the door open and he moves down the small aisle, his lungs and stomach a black mass inside his chest, because, yes, of course he can see inside his own damn heart, and what kind of girly question is that? He’s known there is something there since - hell, since he’d discovered Cas was a virgin, probably. That single panicked look Cas had given him - Dean had never felt more predatory, but, come on - this was an angel, his _guardian_ angel, even, and what kind of douchebag would take advantage of that?

So Dean had waited and waited; and then, of fucking course, things had gotten complicated.

Because -

Dean stops, picks up a random thing to avoid looking like a mad person.

Because Cas can say whatever he wants - _he_ ’s the one fucking walking away, all the fucking time. When Cas had called him - God, Dean had looked through the window of that stupid Gas-N-Sip for a good half an hour, thinking about what to say, wondering if this was the right moment to say it. In the end, he’d decided he wasn’t going to go full Gere - no way he was walking into that thing and rescuing Cas from a dreary life as a sales associate or something (not that he’d even seen _An Officer and a Gentleman_ , because, chick movie alert!). No, it was better to wait; to work the case first, and then - maybe they would go to a bar - have a few beers -and maybe, just maybe, nothing would need to be said at all - it would simply be a matter of Dean’s knee touching Cas’ under the table, and Dean’s hand laying a bit too close to Cas’, and then - and then -

But Cas had told him headfirst that he had a date. And Dean had been left there, staring at the fucking angel - _his_ fucking angel, he thinks, suddenly annoyed - stealing a rose for the lovely woman waiting for him inside.

(Waiting for him to come in and have hot, sweaty sex on the kitchen table; waiting for him to give her babies and to repaint her fence and to watch the game every Sunday so she can grumble at him because, really, the washing machine still needs fixing; waiting for Cas, this is the bottom line, the hard truth of it all, so she could keep him away from Dean for the rest of his stupid, stupid life, and never mind that they were supposed to be - that -)

“Anything I can do for you, man?”

Dean snaps out of it, finds he’s holding a can of peas, puts it down.

“I - no,” he says, a bit roughly, and then he snatches up a bag of Cheerios just because they’re right in front of him, and walks back to the counter to buy two huge cappuccinos.

The problem is, Cas will change his mind. He’s never wanted to stay there before, and now - he’s just maudlin, is all. Heaven is not the most exciting place to be, after all, not after all the mess Lucifer has managed to create up there, but Cas _will_ get bored of them (of him). Dean doesn’t even know what their lives will be like next, to be honest - Sam seems dead set at courting Eileen until they can have five children and five dogs together, and Dean is getting too old for all of it - hunting, staying alive, and whatever else. The last proper case they’ve had - not that Amara bullshit, the vampire nest - Dean had been so slow it almost hurt (his feelings, that is, and not only his knees and his back and his neck). It had been a miracle, really, that he’d even survived at all.

And Cas is only interested in him out of a demented desire to do good, and save the world and shit, so if (when) Dean decides he’s a danger to himself and others, and, what? opens a bar in Fuckstown, New Jersey? - well, that’s not something Cas would be interested in.

So it would be just sex, really.

 _Good_ sex, probably.

Not that Dean has ever imagined it, or anything.

Not at all.

He has no idea, none, about what they would even _do_ in bed; he would definitely not open Cas’ shirt, one button after the other, slow and loving; he would not pass his tongue on every inch of Cas’ skin. And he would never, never pull Cas on top of him and beg him to -

The thing is, there’s something unsatisfying about the thought of having sex with Cas and then watch him walk away. It’s bad enough when a random waitress does it ( _Oh, honey, I don’t -_ ), but with Cas - with Cas it’d be -

Well.

Dean feels something wet on his face and he realizes it’s snowing. He looks up and marvels for half a second at the timeless beauty of it before remembering he’s carrying two cups of hot coffee and hurrying back towards their room.

And the plan was to get in there and work for another two hours and figure out what the fuck is going on and then do something normal, like gank the fucker and finish the evening in a bar, but it all goes apeshit instead - because as Dean passes in front of the window, he glances through the glass, sees Cas inside the room and stops in his tracks.

 _What the fuck?_ he wonders, as his fingers tighten on the hot cups; and then he tries to calm himself and breathe, because, okay, Cas is here, so what? This is bound to be a _good_ thing, right? Unless Cas is actually here to say goodbye, or something? To tell them he’s turning back into a wavelength of whatever the hell that was and disappears?

Dean hesitates for another minute - it’s not like his heart is jumping inside his chest, because the prospect of Cas leaving forever - or of Cas staying on Earth, for _him_ \- is a matter of supreme indifference to him. Really. Cas can do what he wants. That’s not the problem. The problem is -

And then, before Dean can work out what the problem _is_ , exactly, Sam stands up - all Dean could see of him before had been his shaggy hair - and walks closer to Cas and - hugs him. In a very intimate, very inappropriate way. In a _I’ll dip my head into the crook of your shoulder and sniff your skin_ way. In a _I’ll turn my head, only just, so I can smell your hair and nuzzle your ear and_ -

There is a soft noise when both coffees fall from Dean’s hands and hit the pavement.

Sam is kissing _Cas_. A _serious_ kiss, that is. He’s closed his eyes, and everything.

_What the fuck?_

It only lasts thirty seconds (going on thirty years) but it’s the most awful moment in -

 _What the_ actual _fuck?_

Sam straightens up, steps back.

For fuck’s sake, is he - _crying_?

Because his eyes are red. Is he feeling horribly, horribly guilty about shoving his tongue in the mouth of the guy Dean’s been in love with for fucking _years_ , or did Cas say something to him?

God, is Cas _dying_ or something? Is this a fucked up way of saying goodbye?

_I can see inside your heart. The question is, can you?_

Dean is suddenly seized by a thought which is even worse - what if Cas thinks this is what Dean _wants_? He must know how deeply Dean loves Sam; must have noticed Dean would do _anything_ to keep Sam safe and happy - because Sam’s his kid brother, yeah, and what if Cas somewhat misunderstood that - what the _fuck_ \- are they supposed to live some kind of hippy dream bullshit and buy a king-sized bed and -

And this is the worst moment, really, to remember that badly shaven man Dean once met in a future which never happened at all. A guy who’d been into drugs and Zen and fucking _orgies_.

And Sam _is_ kind of attractive, if you look at him in the right light.

And you're very, very drunk.

And you don’t listen to a word he says, because the bullshit he can go on about -

Dean takes a step back and blinks and comes back to fucking reality.

Cas can think whatever the hell he wants, but Sam is _not_ attractive - Sam is still the stupid kid who would eat nothing but marshmallows for a week and would spend longass car drives inventing Periodical Table based road games and chattering on until Dean would yell in frustration and turn up the volume of the radio, and deafen them both, because Dad had said to take care of his brother, okay, but he’d left no instructions about this - what to do when an eleven-year-old decides to be fucking annoying and see how long he can go without shutting up.

Yes, Sam is all of these things, and now Sam is also the guy Cas - oh _God_.

Before Dean can decide what he wants to do, the motel door opens and Cas walks out. He stops when he sees Dean, but there is nothing on his face - not guilt, not desire, not surprise, not anything. He just smiles and closes the door behind him.

“Hey. I’ll see you around,” he says, which is the most unCas-like sentence in the entire universe, and then he fucking walks _past_ Dean, stepping right into the spilled coffee, and he just keeps walking, all through the parking lot, towards the (now closed) laundry place on the corner, and away.

When Dean recovers his wits and runs after him, Cas is long gone, which doesn't surprise him. 

The guy can fly, after all.

No way Dean was ever going to catch him, even if he wanted to, which he’s not sure he did.

Because, well - what would he even say to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've included a line which seemed familiar when I wa editing the text - it turns out it's a _Bridget Jones_ quote which was possbly a _Black Adder _quote to start with. Books talking to each other, eh? In any case, here it is - because of the political mess we're all in, I've been thinking a lot about Bridget these past few days, and I guess it's only fair to give credit where credit is due.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _  
> _Oh God. Valentine Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at royal family. Look at Mum and Dad._  
>  _Valentine's Day purely commercial, cynical enterprise, anyway. Matter of supreme indifference to me._  
>  _  
> 


	4. Being an Account of What Happens Next

After a while (and, come on, it wasn’t that long, considering) Dean realizes the world hasn’t ended and nothing has changed and the snow falling down upon him is getting thicker and thicker; and he’s finally forced to consider the fact that standing around in a (now empty) parking lot is not the best use of his time.

 _Cas_ , he says, but he doesn’t know how to finish his prayer, or if should even be praying, so he just stops (stops thinking, stops feeling, stops -) and turns around and gets back to the room, hesitating for a split second before crashing the door open.

Sam was sitting down on the bed, his head in his hands, but he stands up at the noise, blinks at Dean, wide-eyed, looking so utterly deranged Dean would be worried about him if -

Yeah.

“So that was unexpected,” Dean says, because he’s considered and discarded literally every other sentence in the universe and this is the one thing he can stand to say right now.

“You - you _saw_?”

Sam’s wretched expression shifts to guilt and shame and something else Dean doesn’t even want to label. Turning his back on his brother, Dean starts to pack his bag just for want of something to do. And it’s not like they’ll be staying here, after all. They’ve got jack on the killer - they’re not even sure there’s a case - and also - also -

“I was standing right outside,” he says, coldly. “And wasn’t that a blast. I tried chasing after -”

“You tried - Dean, that could have been _dangerous_! What were you thinking? We don’t even know -”

“Dangerous? Yeah, that’s one word for it,” snaps Dean, turning around. “And I don’t wanna talk about it. What you do in your free time - your business.”

Sam takes a step towards him, then freezes. God, he looks _ruined_. Dean doesn’t think he’s seen this expression on Sam’s face since - well, the Trials. Probably.

His heart clenches inside his chest as he remembers how Sammy had looked then - 

_You want to know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I let you down. I can't do that again._

\- and something dark and heavy closes like a fist around his heart, because he can’t help what he feels (this flare of fury and disgust), and he _hates_ it. Because what he’d told Sam back then - that’s still true. That will _never_ change. Sam's his kid brother, and Dean loves him, and nothing, nothing will ever change that. Which means Dean shouldn’t feel this way - angry and betrayed and ready to break Sam’s nose - but Dean doesn’t know how to stop it. Looking at Sam is making him sick, and that is - _God_.

(Also, this is his fault. How many times he’d been this close to tell Cas - to explain - to beg him to stay, for fuck’s sake - and he never, ever did it. So if Cas doesn’t understand how things are supposed to work, it's not -) 

“Dean, I - I know I shouldn’t have - I know it will never -”

Sam looks at him, helpless, and then away.

“International Broken Sentences Day, is it?” says Dean, coldly, tightening his fingers on the handle of the duffle bag because, God help him, he could actually _kill_ his brother, right here, right now.

(Because that’s the kind of person he is - a douchebag and a killer - saving people, as if - and that will not change any time soon.)

Sam stares at him, his eyes huge on his pale face.

“Dean, I fucked up. I’m sorry,” he says, and this is too much - without even stopping to think, Dean walks forward and punches him in the fucking face.

And the thing is, Sam takes it. And when Dean lowers his hand and just stands there, breathing a bit unsteadily, Sam doesn’t even try to clean the blood off his broken lip. 

“I know it’s not an excuse,” he says softly, after a full minute, the words a bit slurred, “But do you have any idea how much I’d wanted that to happen? How long I’ve been waiting for it?”

It’s a good thing the phone rings, because Dean is rapidly approaching the point he won’t even care anymore; in fact, he would have ignored the phone, because, fuck it, they’re finishing this, right here and now, but Sam was always the polite one, and he answers.

“Agent Stipe,” he says, managing to sound almost normal (Dean sees him wince to hide the pain of his broken lip, and finds he's not sorry at all). "Yes, I understand. Of course. We'll be there right away."

Dean can guess what's going on - any idiot could. There's another body somewhere in town, which means it doesn't matter what Dean wants (not now, not ever), because they're on the clock here, and this is all there is to it. 

"That was the manager of the Devaney," Sam says, quietly, and this time he does bring his hand up to his mouth, and he wipes the blood away. "Whatever that thing is, it's gone after a chef. Local police has been in and out already. No clues, no DNA, nothing useful at all."

Dean looks up at his brother and frowns. Of course, they've done this since they were children - growing up in cramped spaces will do that to you - force you to get along, to put aside your petty fights because there's only one room and Dad needs to sleep - but what Sam just did, surely that's different - that’s crossing the line - in fact, Sam went so fucking _far_ beyond the line Dean can’t even see him anymore, and right now, Dean wants nothing more than -

 _You've never told him, though. You've never told either of them. Oh, Dean_ , says a voice inside his brain, a voice which sounds suspiciously like Charlie’s, but Dean turns it off. He doesn’t want to talk to Sam about that, and he shouldn't fucking _need_ to. Sam should know, and that’s all there is to it. 

So, yeah, Dean doesn't care about the case, about being a grown-up, about rising above; but the scary part is, he's well trained and the thing just happens on its own - Dean doesn’t even need to think about it. He just nods at Sam and walks out.

"Dean," Sam starts, miserably, but Dean shakes his head without even turning around.

"I said I don't wanna talk about it," he grates out; but then he stops, keeps the door open. "Are you fucking coming or what?"

He can't look at Sam, but he can still see him - he sees Sam glancing at the wobbly wardrobe, and he knows he's wondering if it's even worth to change into his monkey suit (Dean is wearing jeans, because a visit to the library is never worth decent clothes and if it should get out that he actually _likes_ wearing suits, he would never hear the end of it). Apparently, it's not. Sam turns again, gets his computer bag from the desk and that's it. Just another case, Dean thinks, as his brother's tall figure passes in front of him, disappears towards the car. Just another case, that's all he keeps telling himself as they drive towards the fairytale village, Sam wrecked and silent on his left.

"I know I shouldn't have done that," Sam says, out of the blue, as they turn into the hotel's parking lot. "I don't know why I did it. I mean, I know why, it's just - all these years, I thought -"

Dean brakes so brutally Sam almost splits his head open on the glove compartment; and then he simply walks out of the car, leaving the engine running and all, because the end of that sentence is something he really, really doesn't want to hear. Not now, not ever. And Sam had better _park_ the damn car, he thinks, suddenly furious, because Baby ain't the one at fault here.

He doesn't stay behind to check, though. He simply walks up to the main entrance (already drowning in Christmas decorations, and what the hell), and hopes the creature will be easy to find, because he really, really needs to kill something, right fucking _now_.

He barely has the time to step into the lobby and marvel at the gag-inducing quantity of wreaths and pine branches before a well-dressed man in his sixties hurries towards him.

"Agent Stipe, I presume?" the man asks, and he almost manages not to sneer at Dean's clothes - there’s a shift in his expression but something very tiny, something someone else wouldn't have noticed, but Dean's survival literally depends on noticing these things - lies and truths and everything else in between - which is why he smiles widely and offers his right hand in such a way it's impossible not to see his knuckles are bruised and bleeding.

_Please God, let this fucker say anything stupid so I can -_

"Agent Buck, actually. I believe you spoke to my partner. He's right outside," he says, and his smile becomes even sweeter when he sees the guy hesitate for a split second before touching Dean's ruined hand.

“Thomas Devaney. Thank you for coming so quickly,” he says, taking his hand back as quickly as he can and cleaning Dean’s (and Sam’s) blood off his fingers. “I'm afraid the body has already been removed - a large party has requested dinner be served at six, and our staff will need time to disinfect the kitchen floor - but please, feel free to conduct your investigation as you see fit. We are all eager to find out -”

Dean lets him prattle on and forces himself to focus, because, yes, this is probably a case, and it doesn’t matter how much he wishes it wasn’t one so they could get the fuck out of here. God, but this place is _creepy_ \- just look at those deer heads on the wall - and of course he’s a hunter and they shouldn’t bother him, but they still do. Fucking dead eyes following him around the room, it just freaks him out, and why do people -

Not that it matters. And it doesn’t matter where Sam is, either - Dean is almost hoping he fucking took the hint and drove away and away and away - and also, _God_ \- 

His eyes find the woman behind the reception desk. She looks all shades of purebred and stern, and yet she’s very clearly panicking; sad and on edge.

Right. They have a case. They're working. Dean passes a hand through his hair, tries to focus.

So the body is gone. Whatever. They've already seen the other three bodies, and there was nothing on them - no wounds, no bullshit symbols carved into the skin. Just a couple of weird signs by the neck. The victims had all died by asphyxiation, according to the medical examiner, and that doesn't make any sense because there's no physical sign of strangulation - no hint a hand or a pillow has been kept over the victim's mouth, no marks of fingers or ligatures around the throat. Sam, of course, had hit the books with a vengeance - weird killing methods were always his area - but he'd come up empty.

Thank God he'd gotten some action to cheer himself up, Dean thinks viciously, because God knows Sam is a pain the ass when he can't find information and figure stuff out.

And also, well, why is everyone in the fucking _world_ suddenly a douchebag? Sam kissing Cas - Cas kissing Sam - and look at this snotty fucker, all annoyed about his stupid floors, and never mind a man who worked here for fucking _years_ has been iced by a serial killer.

But, yeah, hitting a random hotel manager won’t actually solve anything.

“I'll need to talk to your people,” Dean says, and just then, Sam comes in; Dean can see a flash of revulsion on his face as he takes in the Christmas cheer (the wreaths and the branches and and the hundreds of shiny baubles on the ceiling, and Jesus, it's fucking _November_ ) before he spots them and smiles his customary _I'm a good guy, trust me_ smile.

The manager, however, is not so easily fooled. He glances from Sam's lip to Dean's hand before greeting Sam in a hurried, haughty way and disappearing towards his office. He's clearly thinking why the hell, out of all the FBI agents on God’s good earth, he's been saddled with the rejects, and the thing is, he's not wrong. On a good day, Dean can be proud of his job - he looks damn fine in a suit, can charm the pants off anyone and gank anything - but on days like today, the truth is harder to ignore: both of them are tired and broken in so many places as to be basically useless; and also, well, maybe it's time to admit the only reason they stay together is because they have no one else.

( _Don’t go there_.)

And when Dean follows Sam to the Devaney chief of staff's office, things get worse, because he finds he's suddenly unable to not imagine it - 

(Sam pushing Cas down in the bed, Cas ripping Sam's shirt to shreds -)

Dean closes his hand into a fist and focuses on the slight pain of it as the cuts on his knuckles open and stretch - but it’s not enough, not by a fucking mile, and the thing is, he doesn’t get it, he can’t believe it -

In fact, he's so miserable he hardly pays attention to the conversation with Mr Something or Other (a portly guy in his forties) as the man tells them what happened (a murdered chef, and they knew that already), and who found the body (a waitress who's going to need therapy, because, like, _The look on his face, I’ve never seen anything like it_ ), and what they're planning to do next (go right ahead and cook a meal for thirty people, the sous-chef is more than capable to -).

'Was anything taken?' asks Sam, and the guy frowns.

“Gomez mentioned the storeroom was in disarray,” he says, slowly. “He said there were a couple of empty tuna cans on the floor, and some shelves had been turned over. I told him to proceed to inventory right away - this incident with the tuna cans is clearly unrelated to the murder, but someone could have taken advantage of the mess to make away with our -”

Yeah, and Dean has no doubt a douchey place like this has it all - tins of caviar and French cheeses and whatever else, and he really doesn't want to hear it, because this is the second person in ten minutes to not give a fuck about the fact a man who's worked here for fifteen years has just been murdered in cold blood.

“Have you noticed anything strange?” he says, not even trying to sound polite, and the man frowns again (like the manager, he’s pretending not to notice their cheap clothes and general air of incompetence and violence, but he’s being far less successful than his boss).

“I'm not sure what you mean,” he says.

“People you've never seen before,” Sam supplies, still looking way too sweet and helpful to be allowed. “Or maybe a peculiar smell, or unusual noises?”

“No, nothing.”

But, yeah, that answer was a bit too quick to be honest, and they both know it. They don’t even need to look at each other, which is a plus, because looking at Sam right now -

“Are you sure?” Sam asks, and he was going for concerned, but because of his broken lip (which is now bleeding again) the thing comes out as slightly threatening.

“I thought I saw - but I'm sure I was mistaken.”

“Please tell us what you saw,” Dean says, and then he inevitably thinks about what _he_ saw, and then everything is just too much - he turns around, pretends to look at the bookshelves (seemingly full of those fake things bound in leather and foreign languages they sell in furniture shops) as he clenches his fists and prays.

 _Cas, you son of a bitch - where the_ fuck _are you? You come here, you hear me? You come down here, right_ now _, and you’d better have a fucking good explanation, because - Jesus, Cas, I -_

The thing dies down, because Dean can’t put into words what he’s really feeling. He doubts it _can_ be put into words, actually, though, of course, someone douchey and girly like Sam probably could. And Cas, of course, never answers to his prayer, because he never does, but this time the silence seems even more deafening.

Also, Dean had been kind of hoping, and kind of dreading, Cas would pop into existence right here, but, yeah, fat chance of that.

“- and I happened to see this man walking up the front door - it looked like Rory,” the guy is saying, and Dean turns around and looks at him and tries to give a fuck. 

“I'm sorry, Rory who?”

The man shakes his head slightly.

“Rory Devaney. He’s Mr Devaney’s son. He used to work here, but then he won a scholarship for some kind of art school - Mr Devaney was not happy, I can tell you that - and he left. He lives in Los Angeles, I think.”

“So, his presence here would be unusual, then? You didn't know he was coming?”

“It's not that - the thing is, he recently married and he's in Cabo at the moment. On his honeymoon.”

Sam glances at Dean and raises his eyebrows, conveying a very clear _Dude, that's the second person who's not supposed to be around, shifter alert, I fucking told you_ thing before apparently remembering Dean is not speaking to him and looking away again.

“And you're sure he's still in Cabo?”

“Yes. His husband posted a few pictures this morning.”

“Could we maybe take a look at them?”

The man nods, and the three of them move behind the desk. As soon as the man wakes the computer up, dislodging what was a creepy shot of a tattooed back, a Facebook profile comes up - Rory Devaney, says the name, but when Dean looks at the dates, he sees the posts on the screen are three years old. He doesn't want to nudge at Sam because, well, but he knows Sam has noticed anyway when he sees his shoulders tense.

Looks like Mister _I don’t know anything and I don’t like you, please go away_ is something of a stalker.

“And, uh, are you married?” Sam asks, trying to sound casual, as if this is the kind of thing a normal FBI guy would ask and it’s not big deal.

“Yes.”

“To a woman?” Dean asks, just to be a little shit, and the guy turns red with rage.

“What sort of question is this? Of course to a _woman_! What do you take me to?”

Sam tries to push Dean towards the door and to smile his salesman smile, but it’s way too late for that.

“My partner didn't mean - I'm sorry,” he says; and then he turns to look at Dean, and the expression on his face is so endearingly familiar - Dean remembers Sam beaming like this as a kid, all happy about his homework and stuff - that something shifts in Dean’s heart, and things finally fall into place and a huge sens of relief crashes down on him.

Because, yeah, this is a shifter; and for some reason, he turns into -

“Dude,” he says, ignoring the chief of staff’s huffs and puffs behind him.

“I know,” Sam replies, and now his smile fades a little.

He puts his hand on the handle, hesitates.

“Dean, I - what did you see?”

Dean looks down and doesn’t answer.

God, he’s such an _idiot_. Thirty years of hunting, and he’s been fooled hook, line and sinker. Because he should have known - as soon as Sam had mentioned seeing Jess around, he should have known - and Sammy - oh _God_.

“Look, I just,” he starts, but he doesn’t really know how to apologize; and, as it turns out, he doesn’t mean to, because when Sam opens the door, Cas is standing on the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points if you know who Rory Devaney actually was. :)


	5. In Which We Discover the Truth Doesn't Make One Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This fic started out as fluff, but, man, those _idiots_ \- it's so _hard_ to write fluff about them. So, well, it turned dark. And now it's even darker. I wasn't planning to - it just happened. Please note that in this chapter there is a frank (but not explicit) discussion about the Dean's fucked up childhood and grooming and underage prostitution. If this makes you unhappy for any reason, please stop reading or skip ahead (the next chapter is the final one, and it's going to be sweet and sirupy, I swear) or drop me a line somewhere - I'm always here if you want to rant at me or need a hug, okay?  <3
> 
> So, here goes. Let's things get a bit worse before they get a lot better.

For one heartbreaking second, Dean can just stare and marvel at how uncanny this is - the shifter has Cas down to the last detail - the serious, focused expression; the tie slightly askew; the way he looks at Dean, even, as if pushing into his soul to make sure Dean is _really_ okay (because for Cas, _seeing_ Dean has never been enough - Cas always needs to be absolutely _certain_ Dean is fine, and Dean both expects it and dreads it by now, that careful _Are you alright?_ and those _looks_ \- how Cas’ face turns soft, somehow, concerned and grateful, at the same time, that Dean is still - because Cas has seen him in Hell, of course; and Dean remembers enough of that to know he looked cool as fuck when working for Alastair, God forgive him, cocky and self-assured and damn good at his job - though Cas, of course, must have felt that other part of him without even trying - must have heard him screaming and screaming and wishing for death). So, yes, here it is: the thing walking around in Cas’ skin.

And also the thing who pretended to be Jess and made Sammy’s heart split down the middle.

Ignoring the chief of staff’s confused protestations, Dean grabs the creature by the tie and yanks it forward, hard; he has no strategy, really - he doesn’t even know what kind of shifter this is - he knows, without needing to ask, that Sam is going for siren, but there’s something wrong here - sirens can’t appear as two different people at once, can they? and anyway, it doesn’t matter - the crucial thing here is to kill this fucker, right _now_ , because it’s one thing to be a monster, but being an asshole - hurting _Sam_ -

(also making Dean think Cas is hot for Sam - Jesus,who _does_ that?)

In a fluid, practiced movement, Dean reaches down for the knife in his boot; and then stands up again, buries the blade deep in the creature’s belly. 

But the thing doesn’t go down. At all. It simply looks at Dean, then at the hilt of the knife, still sticking out incongruously from the harmless white shirt.

(There is no blood.)

“I sensed that you were angry, but I had no idea you were _that_ angry,” it says, carefully, and before Dean can even make sense of that, Sam crashes down upon him, pins him to the floor.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” he snaps, right into Dean’s face. “That’s _Cas_ \- are you _drunk_ or something? _Jesus_ , Dean, you - oh. _Oh_.”

Dean looks up at his brother, who’s turned an unflattering shade of deep pink, and then at Cas, now unsticking the knife from his stomach - there is the sound of prayer coming from somewhere, because, yeah, normal people generally don’t like it when things are stabbed, and they like it even less when stabbed things don’t get hurt at all, but Dean can’t be bothered with it right now - 

“You’re looking for a _yōkai_ ,” Cas says, fidgeting with his shirt to make it whole again. “Probably a _bakeneko_ \- a shifter cat - judging from the nature of the things going missing from the crime scenes.”

 _Shiny stuff, tinfoil, twine. Tuna cans,_ thinks Dean, in a vague, unfocused way. _Alright, then_.

His brain is so completely disconnected from the rest of him it may very well belong to a different person, and thank God for that, because someone needs to make a plan to gank the - Jesus _Christ_ \- shifter cat, and that someone is likely Dean, because when is it ever not, but Dean is - he - 

Dean can’t do anything but wish Cas would stop talking and disappear and time would somehow reverse so that the last two minutes can fold upon themselves and become smaller and smaller until Dean can fit them into that place he puts everything else - his Dad crying himself to sleep in the bathroom when they were kids (Dean would push the door open in the morning, find him on the floor, his eyes still red and his leather jacket smelling of beer), and the first time he’d hit him (the other times, Dean hadn’t minded, because when you know it’s coming, yeah, whatever), and Sammy, aged eleven, saying he didn’t care, and didn’t love Dean at all, and wished he could run away and be with another family forever because _It’s not fair_ and _I hate it here, I hate it I hate it I HATE IT_ ; leaving Robin behind, beating up Tom Grady because the guy had tried to kiss him, and, God, Dean had really, really wanted to kiss him back - that place is so full of horrible stuff, Dean mostly fears it will one day overflow, flood his mind and heart and soul with black, sticky goo he will never be able to push back against. He sometimes wonders how other people do it, and then he remembers other people are _fine_ \- decent, deserving, hardworking men who take care of their families instead of disappointing everyone they’ve ever met, everyone they’ve ever cared about (Dean can still hear it, it mostly pops up in those night he tries to sleep and can’t - _I wish it was you who’d died in that fire_ and _I don’t need you, Dean, just leave me the fuck alone_ and _I know you mean well, but it’s too dangerous for Ben to have you here_ and _I gave everything for you, and this is what you give me?_ ).

So, yeah, Dean is piecing stuff together - _yōkai_ , and do they know how to kill a _yōkai_? a copper blade? a silver blade? something to do with metal, anyway - and is also paralyzed and broken and wishing and not wishing and -

Sam is also going through some kind of stupid thing, because he’s still sitting on top of Dean, as if he’s entirely forgotten that movement is even something humans can do; and, yeah, it’s uncomfortable, because Sam is no longer that scrawny kid ( _I don’t need you, Dean, just leave me the fuck alone_ ), and he’s got all his weight on Dean’s lungs, but Dean really doesn’t feel like asking him to get off, because that would imply talking, and talking would lead to a conversation, and oh, _God_.

“ _Yōkai_ can be very clever in their metamorphoses, but I’d never seen one capable of turning into someone’s soulmate. It seems like a worthy addition to your _Men of Letters_ archives,” Cas says, delivering what is a portentous, life-changing statement as matter-of-factly as he talks about duck mating rituals; and Dean can see him, out of the corner of his eye - he sees Cas look down at them both, the familiar, puzzled expression flashing on his face for a second, because, yeah, Cas is actually the normal person here (and how unfair is that?), so he’s probably wondering why the two of them are still on the floor.

Dean licks his lip, dares to really _look_ at Cas, then, and that thing in Cas’ eyes is so endearingly familiar - Cas deciding this must be a human thing he doesn’t understand, and that it would be impolite to ask, so he’ll just go along with it because they may be weird and messed up and brutally violent and the scum of the Earth, but Cas _likes_ them - hell, he _trusts_ them - that his heart disappears inside his chest.

Which is a good thing, because it all hurts so much he can’t focus on what Cas just said - which is bullshit, because Dean - because Cas -

 _God_. 

“ _Yōkai_ are a breed of fairies,” Cas adds, now rummaging through his pockets. “Like fairies, they are hard to kill and vulnerable to iron. I suggest you try with these.”

Sam sort of wakes up, then, and, avoiding Dean’s gaze, he sits back, then stands up. Dean sees him accepting whatever is in Cas’ palm - coins, perhaps - before moving to where the chief of staff is still cowering and (presumably) trying to talk the man out of calling the cops.

“I did not mean to make you angry,” Cas says, softly, looking down at him, and Dean sits up, passes a hand through his hair - a nervous gesture. “What I told you - I only meant - life on Earth is lonely, Dean. And I need to know -”

“Well, you’ve got your answer now, haven’t you?” Dean mutters, interrupting him.

God, he’s so embarrassed he’s fastly approaching the possibility of self-combustion.

Without even glancing at Cas, he stands up, pushes past him and walks out.

And the scary thing is, outside the room the world hasn’t changed. Dean feels like he’s carrying a huge, colourful (and possibly rainbow striped) sign stating, in huge bold letters, _THIS MAN IS A HOMOSEXUAL AND HE WANTS TO DO THE NASTY WITH AN ANGEL OF THE LORD_. But, well, fact is, nobody’s even noticed at him. There is the reception desk lady, still looking like she has a lemon stuck in her throat; and over there a sort of waiter with a tray is carrying a bottle upstairs; and now there is a couple coming through the main doors (both in their fifties and yet holding hands and giggling like kids as they try to shrug the snow off their coats) - and nobody, nobody spares a single _glance_ for the harried-looking and badly-dressed man who just sprinted into the hall as if he had the Devil on his tail. No, everything is light and joy; the place is still glittering with colourful baubles, and the effect is, if anything, stronger than before, because the snow is falling very thick now, which means the room is a bit darker.

Dean stops in his tracks for a second, and then, on instinct, he turns around and heads for the bar.

He’s on his second whiskey when Sam shows up.

Dean expected him to, but he still can’t suppress a wave of shame and hostility from making him hot and cold and uncomfortable all over - he will _not_ talk about this, no matter what Sam has to say.

“Cas says he can’t track this thing,” Sam says, sitting down next to him without asking if it’s okay and calling the barman over with a tired gesture. “He’s gone to have a look around, see if he can find it.”

Dean just drinks. He doesn’t even turn to look at Sam. He knows what happens next, and he’s already fed up with it all - Sam will say, _We need to talk about this_ , and Dean will say no and then Sam will say _You know you can tell me anything_ or some bullshit, as if what Dean is needed to be fucking _discussed_ , as if it weren’t completely _normal_ to - to -

“I just want you to know,” says Sam, once he has a tall glass of beer in front of him, and Dean steels himself, “that I always knew. Well, not about Cas, but about you. I knew, and I never cared. You're my brother, Dean - whatever makes you happy is a good thing in my book. I don’t know why you never said anything, but I really don’t -”

“What do you mean, you always knew?” asks Dean, and it comes out as even more aggressive than he’d meant it to - Sam actually shifts back, his eyes dropping to the counter a bit guiltily.

“Dean, we’ve lived together for - how long? Come on, man. Give me some credit.”

Dean closes his fingers more firmly around his glass so he can avoid forming a fist and punching Sam on the nose (there's still the shadow of a cut on Sam's lip, and Dean feels plenty guilty already, especially now). He’s not angry at Sam, after all, it’s just - this is so _stupid_. Now the thing is out in the open, Dean can’t really remember why he’s tried to hard to keep it a secret. So he likes dick. Occasionally, that is. So what? Dad had cared, of course, and he’d cared enough to beat the shit out of him, but Sam - Dean had known all along Sam would be fine with it. The problem was - the problem is -

Hell, he doesn’t know what the problem is.

“I only wish you hadn’t - well. You know,” Sam says taking a sip from his beer, and Dean glances at him.

“No, I don’t _know_ ,” he says, repressively; and then, when Sam doesn’t say anything, he adds, “Come on. Let’s get this over with. Are you feeling all left out because I’ve never told you about this? Because it’s kind of my business, Sammy.”

“What you did for me is also _my_ business,” says Sam, but his voice is so soft that if Dean were feeling slightly more charitable, he’d ignore it.

He isn’t, though. Not by a fucking _mile_.

“What I did for _you_?” he sneers. “This has nothing to do with _you_.”

Sam bites his ruined lip. He looks wretched and tired, like he hasn’t slept for a week.

“It paid for my lunch. It was my business,” he says, even more quietly, and Dean freezes.

“What?” 

He has to push the word out of his mouth by force, because it just won’t come out; because Sam can’t mean what Dean thinks he means.

“Dean, I wish you’d - we could have found another way,” he says, and Dean stands up, turns to leave.

“We could have found another way,” Sam says, again, grabbing his shirt, and Dean is just this close to - to -

But he doesn’t. Whatever else his father was, he’s taught him well. They’re on a job, and they’re in a very public place. The last thing they need is the police after them, because this shifter is killing people, and they need to stop it. That’s all there is to it, and it doesn’t matter how much Dean wants to yell and punch things. It never did. He’s walked away only once, and that had been enough for Sammy to be attacked (for Sammy to very nearly _die_ ).

No, if there’s one thing Dean knows how to do is to keep his feelings and temper in check.

Still, what is happening here - this can’t be - Sam can’t _know_ -

“Another way to what?” he grits out, and there is such raw rage in his voice Sam lets his hand fall. “What the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

Sam looks up at him, and Dean can read his face like a book - he doesn’t want Dean mad at him, especially not now he’s still messed up about Jess and has finally pieced together everything that's been going on - but at the same time, he’s convinced, because he’s Sam, that if they only _talked_ about it -

And that second instinct wins over, Dean can see the shift on Sam’s face, and he wants to be accepting of who Sam is, knows he should feel _grateful_ , even, because Sam means well and thinks he’s helping Dean and loves his big brother to bits, but all of that is simply not enough, because if Sam knows - if Sam _knows_ -

“I meant,” he says carefully, “about coach Roberts.”

Dean remains exactly where he is, but at the same time he can feel his whole body turn to dust and fall away. He tries to keep breathing, finds he can’t. He closes his hands into fists, then, very tightly, until the slight jolt of pain grounds him, because this is something else Dad taught him - to embrace pain and to use it; to summon it at will. A man is never afraid, and a _hunter_ certainly isn’t. You can’t afford to have a full-fledged panic attack when a vampire is coming at you, after all. And this, right here, might not be a vampire, or any other monster, but Dean knows in his heart, and he hates himself for being like this, that most of the time things he needs to kill (things that want to kill _him_ ) are way easier to deal with than his kid brother - this man now a foot taller than he is, this man who’s still looking at him in the same way that child would - worry and love and a naked (undeserved) trust. Because Dean never resented looking after Sammy - he never minded the diapers and the shitty meals he had to cook and all those times he’d woken up at night too hot and uncomfortable because Sam was clinging to him after a nightmare - but he’s always be afraid of _this_ : that one day Sam would come to understand who, exactly, his brother is. Because Sam is way too smart, and Dean - _Dean_ -

“Who told you?” he asks, his lips barely moving.

Sam looks even more wretched.

“You did,” he says. “When we were - helping you.”

Yeah, Dean remembers that. Not all of it, and apparently, not nearly enough, but his has some memories of it - God, it had been so _painful_ \- he’d wanted, more than anything, to sink into his demon self, to blink his black eyes at the world and laugh and kill and fuck without qualms or consequences; and yet, yet some other, distant part of him had fought to come _back_ \- Dean remembers shouting, and he remembers talking, but he doesn’t - he never realized -

“You were eleven,” he says, and he doesn’t know if he’s apologizing to Sam or to himself. “Dad had been gone two weeks, and we - they were going to kick us out, and then _he_ learned about it -”

(A voice, soft and pleasant, emerging from the darkness: _Winchester?_ And Dean had been just there, his knuckles bruised and bloody from punching the wall, and, somehow, even if it went against every instinct he’d had and every order he’d ever received, he’d found himself spilling everything - or, not _everything_ , but the main thing - Dad calling him from a payphone to say he was in New Mexico and to just take care of his brother until he got back, and the motel guy asking for money and Sammy getting in trouble for stealing someone else’s lunch and - _Maybe I can help you out_ , Coach Roberts had said, and Dean had been so grateful he hadn’t even noticed the man had put a hand on his knee; and later, well. Later, he’d done what he’d been told to, because that’s how he had been raised. And if he hadn’t liked it - you don’t have to _like_ it. What you have to do it shut up and take it.)

“- it was easy money,” he says, awkwardly. “And it has nothing to do with you.”

But Sam is Sam, and he won’t have it, and he won’t drop it.

“The _hell_ ,” he says, reaching for Dean again, grabbing his arm this time, gripping it so tightly it almost hurts (which is good, in a kind of fucked up way). “It has _everything_ to do with me.”

“Just - it’s over, okay? I don’t want to - why are you talking about this?”

“I - after I learned about it, I sort of wondered - is this why you don’t allow yourself to - because -”

None of it makes any sense, so Dean waits; he sort of hopes Sam won’t say anything else, and he sort of hopes he will.

“You liking men,” Sam says, after a long pause. “Are you afraid it comes from - from that?”

It’s like a bucket of iced water was dropped on his head. Dean blanches, takes a step back.

“This conversation is _over_ ,” he snaps, his heart now beating so fast it’s painful - not even a part of himself any longer - just a random object someone has forced inside his body - a dangerous, jagged mechanism which hurts and hurts and hurts.

“Dean, I only meant -”

“I don’t fucking _care_ what you meant,” Dean says, trying to ignore how guilty and close to tears Sam looks.

He’s actually walking away when Sam says it.

“You should give Cas a chance. He really -”

“Shut _up_ ,” Dean almost shouts, turning around, and he doesn’t care, not even a little, that the other customers - because it’s evening now, and there are normal people around them, random couples and families enjoying a glass of something before dinner, or just happy to relax in the carpeted room and look at the fucking deer heads on the walls. “You don’t know what you -”

“Dean, he loves -”

“SHUT _UP_!”

This time, it’s loud and painful and it somehow empties Dean from the inside out; and he’s left so weak and pathetic he hopes Sam will fucking -

But Sam doesn’t. 

He’s standing up now, and, yeah, he’s not that eleven-year old kid anymore, he’s a goddamn _giant_ , so it doesn’t make any sense his eyes are red.

“He’s _alive_ ,” he says, his voice trembling a little. “He’s _alive_ and he’s _there_ and you could just - you’re _such_ an idiot -”

But Dean doesn’t have to stay there and take it.

He turns around instead, walks out of the room, out of this stupid, douchey hotel, out in the storm outside, and he welcomes the loud punch of the cold air against his face, because he’s done and finished and he doesn’t want to think about anything anymore. And so he walks, and then he runs, half slipping on the white street, and he doesn’t even know _where_ he’s going - there are dark shapes which could be trees or houses or goddamn _dragons_ all around him -

( _So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings_ , says Charlie’s voice inside his head.)

\- and he keeps moving forward, his face now numb, and dull ache starting in his arms and legs, and he _relishes_ it - the darkness and the emptiness and this silent, creeping _pain_ \- because he can’t think, he can’t -

( _It has everything to do with me. We could have found another way_.)

\- and now everything is fucked up, and Cas is _gone_ \- why didn’t Cas stop him, why didn’t Cas _say_ anything? He must have guessed what Dean reaction meant - he must have guessed what the _yōkai_ looked like to Dean, and if he didn’t say anything _back_ \- if he didn’t -

( _Dean, he loves -_ )

\- then it means -

Dean slips and falls down; and as he’s on his knees, wondering if he even wants to get up, he sees it - sees the road stretch on ahead him, white and peaceful, the snow completely unbroken; and he sees Cas standing in the middle of it, only twenty feet away. Cas smiling at him in that way he has - a bit hopeful and a bit sad.

And Dean pushes himself to his feet and walks towards him, because it’s not even something he has to make a decision about; because Cas is the North of the fucked up compass ticking inside him, and Dean will always, always choose him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings._ \- JRR Tolkien


	6. In Which Manly Tears Are Almost Shed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. I'm sorry. But this was getting very, very long, and I felt I had to split it - afraid you guys got the short end of the straw because the tragic part will be up now and the smutty part will have to wait.
> 
> Again, I apologize.
> 
> Also: more talk of abuse - please be safe.

“So, did you find it?” Dean asks, coming to a stop a foot away from Cas.

He’s shivering violently now, deep, raw shakes which are making it difficult to speak and feel; Cas, however, is unperturbed by the cold. He’s just standing there, his hands in the pockets of his office slacks, his dark hair blossoming with snowflakes.

Dean can’t help it: he takes one more step, almost closing the distance between them - what he wants (what he _needs_ ) is to hug Cas, to make sure Cas is really here with him, that Cas _wants_ to. This seems too much, though, so Dean keeps his arms closed around himself (he’s pulling at the edges of his leather jacket, but, yeah, that thing is not going to get him warm any time soon) and just stands there, looking down at Cas through his frozen lashes.

Cas looks back at him, and says nothing.

“Look,” says Dean after another few seconds have passed, because he hates talking about his feelings or anything, but he’s always hated the silence more (those long car rides they weren’t allowed to put music on or even talk to each other because Dad’s head still hurt; Dean used to sit shotgun, would glance at Sam from time to time, at what of him he could glimpse in the rearview mirror - would see his brother move his fingers on the window, very lightly, as if imagining he could touch the landscapes beyond the glass). “About what happened - I don’t know, okay? And I can’t -”

Before Dean can even put into words what it is, exactly, that he can’t do, Cas smiles and moves forward and hugs him.

And Dean - Dean melts into it. He doesn’t want to, and he does want to, and in any case it doesn’t fucking _matter_ because he’s not even thinking about it - he simply lets his head fall on Cas’ shoulder and allows himself to be held.

He doesn’t know what he wants with Cas. He’s terrified about having _anything_ with Cas - it was always, always difficult to think Cas could see him exactly as he was - that Cas knew _everything_ about him - his childhood fears and all the times he’d messed up and, God, what he did in Hell - Dean had been mystified when Cas had -

Because, yeah, so at first the angels had needed him to be Michael’s bitch. They hadn’t cared that Dean was a good for nothing alcoholic with two lifetimes under his belt and nothing to show for it. Jesus, they’d probably _relished_ that - had surely banked on the fact it would make Dean more likely to say yes to Michael - anything to redeem himself, to make his life matter.

(And, yeah.)

And even when Cas had rebelled for him - for _him_ , there was no way around it - Cas had done it because Dean had fucking _asked_ him to - Dean hadn’t allowed himself to think about it. He’d seen the look on Sam’s face, and Bobby’s frown. He wasn’t blind. But, still, Cas was Cas - he was an angel, for Chrissakes, and who the hell even knew what he thought about half the time, and how he understood the world? Something that’s millions of years old?

So, all in all, Dean hadn’t been surprised when Cas had fucked off to Heaven. Angry, yes. And lonely. But not surprised.

But then, Cas had come back. Cas had chosen to be there, had even spelled it out, in soft, uncertain sentences ( _Most of the time, I’d rather be here_ ) and that had been weird - for Dean , the idea that Cas would like him - _trust_ him, even - _God_. He’s fought against it for years, because he doesn’t deserve this. What Sammy feels for him, of course, he can’t help, because Dean will always be the older brother and Sam will always sort of look up to him - there’s too much shit between them for him not to. Also, there’s a lot of stuff Sam doesn’t know, because, yeah, so Sam knows about Coach Roberts -

(Dean shudders against Cas’ chest, because, fuck, that still hurts - not the eyes on him and the hands on him and the searing pain and the shame; not that, not anymore. What comes up in his nightmares from time to time is the rest of it - how Coach had insisted he _cared_. How _kind_ he’d been. How he would frame his desires - in the beginning, at least - as suggestions, not orders. Something friends would do, _because this is what we are, right? Friends. You can count on me, Dean. I’m here for you, Dean. I’d understand if you didn’t want to, but -_

And it was all a lie, of course. Coach hadn’t _cared_ \- Dean, dumb fuck that he is, had only realized months later, and he still remembers the moment so well - he’d been sitting on a chipped toilet, his hands on a guy’s belt, when it had just happened. _I’ll pay you double to do it without a rubber, pretty_ , the guy had said, passing his fingers on Dean’s hair, yanking his head forward, and something in his voice - Dean had suddenly realized he hadn’t been attracted to Coach at _all_ , that he hadn’t even _liked_ him - had remembered how Coach would pull at his hair in the precise same way - _It’s good if it hurts a bit_ , he’d say; and also, _One day you’ll understand_. In that moment, Dean had experienced a sudden bout of dislike and resentment. Of course, he’d still rubbed his cheek on the guy’s jeans, because, hell, double? no way he was turning that down, but later he’d found his newfound bitterness, the sense of being treated unfairly, wouldn’t gone away. It’d still taken him years, though, to accept it had been downright abuse; and even now, the word _rape_ just won’t come out, because Dean Winchester doesn’t get _raped_. For fuck’s sake, by the time he’d been fifteen he’d already killed two vamps and some kind of werething - he’d helped out his Dad with dozens of ghosts - he could hold his own with guys twice his size - no way he could have been tricked and abused and fucking _raped_.

And yet.)

\- but Sam doesn’t know about the rest of it. About all those men in dirty bathrooms and back alleys and discreetly parked cars. About the disloyal, treacherous thoughts which have been flashing through Dean’s mind from the very beginning (if Mom had left Dad, if Sammy hadn’t been born, if Dean had stayed at Sonny’s, if if _if_ ). About the things he did after Sam had left for Stanford as soon as Dad’s back was turned - the drunken fights and the B&Es and the quick, rough sex with anyone who’d have him, and never mind getting paid. 

And also, Sam doesn’t know what Dean did in Hell. He doesn’t understand how much Dean had relished the taste of blood, the screams in his ears, the sense of power coursing through you when you’re about to hurt and kill someone and they know they’re not getting out.

(Better than sex. Better than drugs. Better than _anything_ on this goddamn Earth.)

 _Jesus_.

But Cas knows, and Cas still wants him, and this is why Dean allows himself to be held, his body very cold, his brain just this side of giving up. 

Cas can _see_ him, and Cas -

Dean’s hands are still deep in the pockets of his jacket, which means it’s difficult to fight back when Cas’ hands turn into claws and press hard against his back, keeping him in place. Dean pushes back, his movements slow and graceless - he’s still so cold he’s half shaking - feels the creature’s breath on his neck, the barest hint of a sharp set of teeth - and then, finally, the adrenaline kicks in and Dean growls and gets free; and that is the moment the thing seems to decide Dean isn’t worth it, after all - Cas’ eyes blink once, very blue on his pale face, and then the shifter turns around, and runs away.

Dean swears loudly, because, yeah, that’s not happening. With stiff, cold fingers he prises a small knife out of the sole of his boot, and then he starts to chase the shifter, slipping and scrambling on the frozen forest path.

Fuck the special coins or whatever that was – Dean will fucking behead this thing with his bare _hands_ if he has to – and, luckily, this was always what he was good at - the only thing he can actually do. Hunt stuff down, and kill it. The rest of it - love, relationships, knowing how to be a fucking human being - well, not so much. But he’s a goddamn fine hunter, and that’s why he feels it at once, as soon as it happens (the almost noiseless change in the air; the slight pressure against his skin) - skidding on the snow, he half turns around, and relief floods through him - Cas has come into being behind him, his eyes glittering, almost white with light.

Without saying a word, he looks from Dean to the shifter - the thing must have felt Cas too, because it has stopped in the middle of the path, and now it’s just standing there, a scared look on his face (and Dean can’t look at it, because, fuck it, he knows that’s not Cas, okay? he _does_ , but he’s seen that expression on Cas’ face before, and he can’t -), his arms slightly raised, as if in surrender.

Cas looks at Dean again, and then he runs forward, his feet leaving no prints in the freshly fallen snow, and whatever happens next, it happens very quickly. One second, Cas is seemingly wrestling with himself; the next, Cas - the real one (probably; hopefully) - is standing next to a pile of discarded, empty clothes.

“Dean?” he asks, and it’s only then that Dean realizes the cold is too cold and his legs can barely hold him up and the world is all muted fireworks and pain.

“Took you long enough,” he says, forcing the words out, and then he steps closer to Cas, because, well.

(What does it say about him, though, that he can be fooled so easily? And what does it say about _Cas_ , a snide voice inside his head says suddenly, that he wasn’t fooled at all?)

“What are you doing out here alone?” Cas asks, ignoring him. “Where is Sam?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

Son of a bitch, it’s _freezing_. Dean stops moving, hides his face in the collar of his jacket. 

“You shouldn’t have gone off by yourself.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m a goddamn _child_ ,” snaps Dean, looking up again, because he’s not about to be lectured, not now they –

“Then stop acting like one,” says Cas, and though his voice was mild, Dean can hear the anger and the exasperation in every word.

He knows those feelings well, and he knows what they mean, because, hell, over the years, Cas has been pretty open about it – Cas is never angry at Dean, no matter all the shit Dean does ( _You were stupid for the right reasons_ ) – no, Cas is always, unfailingly angry in those _other_ moments – when Dean puts himself in danger, when he acts as if his own life doesn’t matter (even though, of course, it doesn’t).

Yeah, Dean understands plenty well. He feels the same way about Cas, and Sam, but the difference is – they are worth it. They are worth _saving_ , they are worth –

“I’m not -”

“You consumed eight units of alcohol today,” says Cas, without even needing to look at him. “And your current body temperature is 96 degrees - one short of hypothermia.”

Dean can’t say anything to that. He takes another step forward, and God, now his head starts to hurt, and -

“That’s creepy. How you do that,” he complains, but there’s no real fight left in him, and Cas knows it.

He looks at Dean in that way he has, half fond, half sad.

“Dean,” he says, but before he can get another word out, the shifter’s empty clothes shudder and move and -

“Look out!”

But it’s only a cat. It walks out of what Dean still sees as a trench coat, all haughty and dignified. Its fur is as white as the snow it’s now standing on. It looks at them briefly, seemingly assessing them with its golden eyes, and then it turns and walks away, and Dean can see very clearly, even under the stars’ uneven light, that it has two tails.

_What the -_

He takes an uncertain step forward, but Cas puts a hand on his arm, steadies him.

“Let her go,” he says.

“But -”

“She’s harmless now, and she probably doesn’t even remember what she’s done. Cats sometimes shift when nobody looks after them.”

“What?”

Cas gets serious then, and open his mouth, and he’s probably about to start on a very complicated, and quite possibly theological explanation, when Dean decides he’s just too damn cold and miserable to stay there and listen to it.

“Whatever,” he says, half turning around and freeing his arm from Cas’ grip. “It’s a good thing you found me, and all. Let’s leave it at that.”

But Cas doesn’t, because he can hear very clearly what Dean really means; can see what Dean is thinking.

“Dean - you should not be ashamed that she fooled you. It’s in her nature to do so. And as for me - she mimicked you to perfection, but -”

Dean hugs himself a little bit tighter and pretends to ignore the actual meaning of what Cas just said, but, again, Cas won’t have it. He walks a bit closer to Dean, tilts his head to one side a mere fraction.

“I’d recognize you soul anywhere,” he says, quietly. “I once held it in my hands, Dean. It calls out to me. And now I am whole again, it shines out quite clearly to me - from here,” he says, reaching out, pressing the palm of his right hand to Dean’s chest, “and here -”

His hand moves upward, reaches Dean’s face, and Dean remains completely still as Cas follows Dean’s eyebrows with his fingers.

“And here,” Cas adds, even more softly, and now his hand is cupping Dean’s face, and his thumb is ghosting on Dean’s lower lip. 

_God, I love you so fucking much_ , is what Dean thinks, and also _Kiss me already, because I’m too much of a fucking coward to kiss you_ and _I wish I could see your soul, too, or your Grace, or even your real face_ , but he’s tired to the bone and very, very cold, and even inside his head all of that sounds like the gayest shit known to man, so he doesn’t say anything. 

But he doesn’t move away, either.

Cas presses his thumb a bit more firmly on Dean’s lip.

“What do you want?” he asks, because he’s an oblivious bastard, and how can he think this is even a conversation they should have - _Jesus_ , hasn’t he been paying attention?

Dean shakes his head, breaking the contact between them, and shivers as he tries to speak, because, fuck, he needs to get indoors, like, right now.

“I told you. I want you to stick around,” he says, uncomfortably. “Come on, you know why. Can we just - not talk about it?”

Cas looks at him then, and Dean finds himself thinking about the Devaney’s hot tub (it's such a ridiculous place, the thing is on the fucking _roof_ ), the one he’s seen on the website when he was scoping out the place; and if he’s thinking about hot water when Cas is staring at him that way, well, that’s only because it’s very, very cold out here.

No other reason.

And then Cas reaches out, touches Dean’s shoulder, and Dean is barely aware of blinking before he finds himself completely wet.

“What the fuck?” he asks, and he tries to fight it, he does, okay? but the feeling is so primal - the water is warm and welcoming and fucking _necessary_ , because, Jesus - that he immediately gives up, lets himself drop to his knees, even if he’s fully clothed, and puts his head under the water and _God_ , surely this is the happiest he’s ever been? Because Dean had been so fucking cold, his body aching all over, and this is - this is everything.

Dean waits until the very last moment, until he really needs to breathe, before resurfacing, and his face is immediately cold and stinging again, because, yeah, he's actually outside, and the moonless night is still closing in upon him.

He doesn’t mind, though. Now he’s fully submerged into blissfully hot water, the snowflakes stabbing at his skin are unimportant; almost pleasant, in fact, and, for a long moment, he just kneels there, his head bowed, his clothes heavy on his body, and basks in the feeling.

In a way, it’s no different from the way he always feels after a case - the thing is dead (or, well, walked away into a frozen forest, its two tails curling almost coquettishly in the half light) and he’s not. He’s fine, and Sam is fine (sort of, and guilt suddenly tugs at his stomach - Dean squashes it down), and Cas is -

Where is _Cas_?

Dean’s eyes snap open as he looks around him and starts to stand up, the cold night air turning his wet clothes into an instrument of slow torture - and then, Dean sees Cas, and that doesn’t matter at all.

Because Cas is doing that thing where he’s pretending to be human, and failing. He never does that much anymore, not since he’s been human himself (and, God, Dean had hated every _minute_ of it - he likes it much better to have Cas like this - whole and healthy and much, much harder to hurt), and Dean smiles at him, because he’s sort of missed this. Cas’ obliviousness, his awkward attempts to fit in.

(He suddenly remembers, again, that stupid cartoons case, and how Cas had taken the time to talk to that cuckoo old lady - how serious he’d been, and how he’d probably been able to see right inside her - how he’d read her blood sugar and her entire medical history in her eyes, and yet had been unable to understand how hard she’d been crushing on him.)

Because, well, Cas is sitting by the side of the pool, still completely clothed, and his feet are dangling over the edge, so that his pants are half wet. He probably hasn’t noticed, mostly because he’s a dumbass _angel_ , and also because he’s staring at Dean as if -

Dean clenches his jaw and he sort of float-walks towards Cas, keeping his body firmly underwater, even though now the freezing cold is gone from his limbs. He can’t remember when was the last time he actually did this - he never swam in the sea, and the last time he even saw a lake must have been - _God_ \- that time when he’d just learned about Lucifer (about Cas) and he’d just drove and drove, Sam a big, unhappy presence in the passenger seat, until they’d seen the lake and the road had ended and Dean had found he could drive no longer.

And now he’s getting close to Cas - he could easily stand up properly, push himself between Cas’ legs, and just -

Dean drops back to his knees, his clothes suddenly way too cold and heavy, dragging him down; and he looks up at Cas, who is all kind of beautiful and scary in the soft lights of the pool, the water ripples reflected on his face, his hair a cobweb of frozen snowflakes.

 _God, I love you_ , is what Dean wants to say; and also, _Please never leave me again_.

Instead, he gestures vaguely at the pool around him; looks up at Cas, then away.

“Thanks for this,” he says, and Cas nods.

“You should try and keep your body temperature between 97 and 99 degrees at all times,” he says, gravely, as if they’re even going to talk about that.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

God, Dean wants nothing more than - but he can’t. He still can’t believe that Cas would actually _want_ \- that the shifter turned into -

(He remembers, fleetingly, how Cas had looked from him to the shifter when he’d first appeared in that forest path; how his eyes had seemed to both soften and harden at the same time before he’d turned his back on Dean and put himself in danger, for Dean, fucking _again_.)

And there’s something else he needs to say, and it doesn’t matter how much he doesn’t want to. 

“Cas, if you want to stay, I’m all for it,” he starts, but he looks down at the dark water when Cas smiles, because there’s more to it - there’s _always_ fucking more to it, and it’s just not fair. “But I don’t want you staying here for some bullshit reason. Like, this whole soulmate crap - it’s destiny and shit all over again. I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t, either. It’s your decision to make, man, and not -”

Dean’s sentence peters out. He doesn’t want to look back at Cas, but this silence between them is way too heavy, and in the end Dean raises his eyes, see that Cas is - Cas is still fucking smiling.

“It’s not about destiny,” he says, and his gaze softens, because Dean, well, Dean must be an absolute mess by now, what with his wet hair and the way he’s still kneeling in the water, like a boy in a confessional. “A soulmate is someone you choose, not someone who’s forced upon you.”

The words seem to take a long time to reach Dean’s brain, and when they do, they seem - they _are_ -

“I’m not,” he says, “I don’t -”

“And yet you are, and you do.”

Dean shakes his head.

Before he can say anything to that (and, Jesus Christ, what can he even _say_?), Cas tilts his head to one side again, as if listening to something.

“Your brother needs you,” he says, and Dean immediately stands up, the cold hitting him like a brick wall.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. He just needs you.”

Dean pulls at his soaked clothes, takes one step to the side, vaguely heading for the door leading back into the hotel, and he also tries, very hard, not to think about it - Sam’s red eyes, and how he’d shouted at Dean ( _He’s_ there. _He’s_ alive.). Because it’s not like Dean has ever forgotten, or anything; simply, Jess is item one of a long list he can’t do jack about, so Dean tries hard not to think about her - because he knows, of course, he _does_ , that she’d been perfect for Sam; he knows how damn _much_ Sam had loved her, even if Sam had told him only once, a few weeks after her death, and he’d been out of his fucking mind with alcohol and grief - 

But, yeah. Of course it doesn’t work like that. It never does. 

“Can’t it wait till morning?” he asks, making a futile effort to squeeze the water out of his jacket.

And the thing is, he’s not complaining. Despite his world-weary, borderline sarcastic tone, he’s actually asking Cas to have a good look inside Sam’s head, hoping things are not as bad as they can be, because his head’s not screwed up right today and he doubts he can be of any use to Sam.

(And also, goddammit, Cas is right _here_ , and -

Right. As if.) 

Cas shakes his head.

“No. It can’t.”

“Fine,” Dean mumbles, stepping out of the pool and shivering all over. “Where is he?”

“Room 302.” 

Somehow, it’s not that creepy, the way Cas does that; simply something Dean would do himself, if he knew how. Keeping tabs on Sam - yeah, that would have saved him a lot of grief over the years. And if he could know where Cas is at any given moment - 

Dean walks away, puts his hand on the door handle, but then he turns around and just stands there, dripping on the tiles and looking back at Cas. There are so many things he wants to say and doesn’t know how, and others he probably needs to say and doesn’t want to.

And, fuck it - Cas just smiles, fucking again; a small, barely there smile which still makes his face soften all over. 

“Go,” he says. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

This makes something ache inside Dean’s chest. Before he can think it through, he licks his lips, blurts out the question beating inside his mind like a moth buzzing against light.

“Yeah? You sure?”

And it’s not just that, is it? Dean isn’t asking about right now, about this stupid pool and this douchey hotel - about a night which is ruined already, because everybody’s hurting and Cas is probably tired (of the hunt, of their bullshit) and Dean’s clothes are heavy and cold and it’s all just too fucking much. No, this is the closest Dean can get to asking that _other_ thing, and it’s a scary, dark question he shouldn’t have presumed to ask, and Cas will probably - 

But Cas doesn’t.

“Yes,” he says, at once; and then he hesitates for a split second before adding, “Dean, I -”

“I know,” says Dean, because he _does_ know, and he can’t hear it.

And then he turns around, opens the door, walks through it and away.

Because he can’t think, exactly, about what will happen next. About what, if anything, will change between them. About what will happen tomorrow, and the day after that. He tries to hold on to Cas’ expression instead, to Cas touching Dean’s chest and his eyes and his lips, fond and happy as he passed his fingers on Dean’s very soul - and isn’t it a perfect summary of everything, really (unexpected and plain perfect and truly and spectactularly _unfair_ ) that Cas can see it even when Dean can’t? That Cas knows him better than he knows himself, that Cas sees everything and he just -

It’s not possible. There must be a catch somewhere, but Dean is too tired to see it.

When he raises his eyes and sees the little brass number, he’s so deep down the rabbit hole he knocks and steps inside before he even knows what he’s going to say.

The room is comfortable - a thing of thick, red carpets and leather chairs - but unfriendly; sketched into reality only by the soft glow of the desk lamp, which is casting an uncertain halo over the desk himself (a solid, _I mean business_ thing with a stash of embossed stationery paper on one side), the chair in front of it (more leather, more official-looking bullshit), the carpet on the floor (a deep, deep red which reminds Dean of werewolf’s blood), the minibar (a black, snotty thing) and Sam himself, who’s sitting very close to it, his back against the wall and his head now raising up to stare at Dean.

“What are you doing here? Where did you go?” he asks, and, somehow, these two questions make perfect sense with each other, because they are, really, the same question.

“Around,” shrugs Dean, stepping closer, kicking Sam’s leg, lightly, so Sam will move it and Dean can sit by his side against the wall.

“Why are you wet?” asks Sam, but he doesn’t make an effort to shy away, not even when Dean’s dripping jacket presses up against his shoulder.

“The shifter is gone,” Dean says, ignoring that, and then he frowns. “I’m not sure what went down, exactly, but he - she - is not a problem anymore. Cas turned her back into a cat or some shit.”

Sam looks at him, his eyes completely empty.

“Good,” he says, after a few seconds, but it sounds perfunctory at best.

Dean glances at Sam’s profile, and, for some reason, a memory flashes through his mind - Sammy’s birthday in third grade - they’d gone to a diner, just the two of them, had waited and waited for Sam’s classmates to show up. 

(Dean had known, even at thirteen, that nobody would come, because they’d been in that new school one week, and Sammy was the weird kid parents didn’t want their children to play with - the shy boy in the last desk by the window, the one with the badly cut hair and the second-hand clothes - the one who’d come to school with a black eye because, yeah, he’d been angry enough at Dad, so desperate to prove himself, that he’d gone and practiced with Dad’s rifle without knowing how to deal with recoil. So, well.)

“Nobody’s coming, are they?” Sam had said, after a full hour of forced jokes (Dean’s) and gloomy silence (Sam’s); and Dean had squandered away a full week of rent and ordered every burger and every milkshake and every pie on the menu.

Truth be told, he’s such a dysfunctional coward he’d gladly do that now, but he knows Sam’s not in the mood for pie. No, the bastard wants to talk it through, and _goddammit_.

“I thought I wanted a drink,” Sam says, stretching his long legs out again, “but once I came up here - that’s what Dad would do. What _you_ would do,” he adds, venomously, and Dean passes a hand on his face.

God, he’s so tired, and so bad at this.

“Look, about before -”

“And if Jess hadn’t died - at least she died before she knew the truth about it. About me.”

“Truth? What _truth_?”

Sam laughs.

“The demon blood? The hunting thing? Being a vessel for the fucking _Devil_?”

“Sammy,” Dean starts, because it’s unfair, but Sam stops him.

“Whatever,” he says. “Have you talked to Cas?”

Okay. So they’re doing this.

“He’s upstairs,” Dean says, which is not an answer at all.

“Right.”

“And this soulmate thing - you know it’s bullshit, right?”

Sam laughs again - a bitter, pained sound.

“That means you’re not going to ask him to prom?”

“Jesus, I don’t - we’re talking about you, here.”

“Are we?”

“Yes,” Dean says, fiercely, because he hates, hates seeing Sam like this. “So she died. People _die_ , Sam. Mom died and Dad died and Bobby died - nothing we can do about it.”

He turns a bit, so he can look at Sam properly, and instantly regrets it, because Sam’s face - there is something ugly and distant and hurt inside his eyes, and Dean can’t bear it.

“That soulmate thing,” he says again, and he hopes he doesn’t sound as desperate as he’s feeling, “that’s bullshit. Cas told me - well, I don’t know, but - it’s not about destiny, or whatever.”

Dean pauses, unsure, words behaving as they usually do when he tries to say something which actually matters - turning and fluttering like a mindless flock of birds in the roof of his mouth.

“It’s bullshit,” he repeats. “You see what you want to see, nothing else.”

Sam’s hands clench against each other.

“And what does this say about me, then?”

“That you’re a goddamn _idiot_. That you’ve got a decent woman nice enough to text you monkey emojis fucking 24/7, and you’re still thinking about Jess instead because - because -”

Dean stops. He sort of knows what he wants to say, but the saying part is really hard.

“Because?”

Sam’s voice is not even cold anymore. He sounds so far away from Dean that Dean has to look at him again, even though it fucking hurts - has to move his leg, only just, to touch Sam’s, and make damn sure they’re in the same fucking _room_ , let alone the same goddamn conversation.

“Because she wasn’t us,” he says, way too loudly.

Sam sort of shies away, then, but Dean won’t let him. His fingers grabs at the soft cotton of Sam’s shirt.

“You just took off and went away and got your perfect apple pie life,” Dean says, a bit roughly, “and Jess -”

Sam doesn’t say anything.

“She didn’t know about hunting, and I bet she didn’t know about those other things as well, right? About Dad, and stuff? She was just this person you could have Thanksgiving and Christmas with - the real thing, not some crappy sandwich in a motel -”

“Shut up -”

“I bet you had it all, right? The things you used to watch on TV?”

Dean hadn’t meant to sound vicious, but, yeah.

“Walking on the beach and watching the sunset and fucking _brunches_ and -”

“Stop it -”

“- I bet she kept flowers on her bedside table and she’d call you _darling_ or some shit -”

“Dean, I swear to _God_ -”

“- that you two made sweet love and there were candles in the motherfucking room -”

Sam half growls and turns around. He pushes Dean, hard.

“Shut _up_!”

“Well, guess what,” says Dean, right into Sam’s face. “That’s what normal people have. All the time. That’s what loving someone does to you, because it’s not about _her_ , Sammy. It’s about _you_.” 

Sam shoves at Dean, and then he stands up, and it’s not even clear what he wants to do - find a weapon, or get out, or what the hell - Dean won’t have it.

“For fuck’s sake, Sammy,” he says, getting up as well, his wet clothes now colder and more uncomfortable than ever against his skin. “Fucking let it _go_.”

Sam turns around, then, launches himself at Dean - they both end up on the thick carpet, Dean pinned under Sam’s gigantic body as Sam yells right in his face ( _You don’t know what it’s like, You don’t know, You don’t_ -), and surely this racket will make someone come in here, or maybe not, because in these fancy places guests do what they damn please, and never mind -

Dean’s mind turns this way and that as Dean tries to get out from that fruitless train of thought. It’s fucking difficult to focus, though, because Sam is really heavy, Dean can barely breathe now, and Sam’s voice is way too loud, his furious words deafening blows against Dean’s face and heart; and so Dean just - he brings his arms up, and hugs Sam around the middle, forcing him to get even closer, even if Dean is still wearing his wet jacket and Sam’s shirt will get ruined and useless - Dean hugs his brother as fiercely as he can, hoping it will be enough, that he can make everything go away.

“I _know_ ,” he says, over and over, even if Sam can’t hear him, his own voice way too loud; and then it suddenly happens - one second Sam is raging at him, trying to get away, trying to punch the shit out of him, and the second Sam just gives up, collapsing against Dean, his breathing all messed up but too dry to be sobs, and thank _God_.

“We’ll fix it,” Dean says, through a mouthful of Sam’s stupid hair. “It’s you and me, okay? And I’m not letting go - we’ll fix it.”

And so Dean holds on for dear life, Sam’s breathing ragged and fast against his neck - he wonders, briefly, if his brother is having a panic attack, but then remembers the Winchesters don’t do panic attacks - he thinks about that faraway birthday instead, how they’d shared a bed again for the first time in forever when they’d gotten back to the motel, even if Dad wouldn’t be back for another week and there was plenty of place. He remembers Sam breathing against his back much in the same way he’s breathing now, only he’d been crying back then, and his silent tears had left a wet patch on Dean’s t-shirt neither of them had mentioned in the morning.

God, they’d been kids. Just _kids_.

His arms still tight around Sam’s waist, Dean finally allows the truth to sink in. 

They'd been kids.

Which means none of it, really, is Dean’s fault. He’s done the best he could, and this right here is the only thing he can do for his brother now - he can be there for him. That’s it. Dean can be there for him when Sam is a boneless mass of regret and guilt in his arms; and he can be there for him when Sam rolls off him, shakes his head (“I thought you didn’t do chick things.” - “You’re damn right I don’t.”), collapses against the couch, looking bitter and too thin, somehow, but also calm, much more like his normal self. Dean is there for Sam as Sam gets the minibar open, gets them both a beer (and a fancy one at that) and opens a can of _Pringles_.

Dean frowns at it.

“Fancy place like this, I was expecting salmon bagels,” he says, taking a couple of chips, and Sam actually smiles.

“Good thing we’re not paying the bill.”

Dean takes a swig of his beer, and, for a while there is just silence as they both come to terms with what just happened. Which is, Dean knows inside his heart and lungs, a Very Good Thing. He can see Sam readjust around it all, and he knows the same expression must be palstered all over his own face, because he feels lighter than he has in fucking _ages_.

“So, you just broke in here?” he asks in the end, taking another chip, and Sam shrugs, a bit sheepishly. “We better get out before morning, then.” 

“You’re getting out right now,” Sam says, throwing his beer cap at Dean’s face (and Dean totally allows Sam to hit him on the fucking nose, because he is a fine damn hunter and he could have avoided that for sure, if he’d wanted to). “Isn’t Cas waiting for you?”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, and God, is he _blushing_?

“God, you’re such a wuss. Just go to him.”

“I’m not a _wuss_. I just want -”

Dean looks around, as if trying to summon the right words from thin air, and the room’s expensive furniture looks back at him, cold and uncaring, because, yeah, this is something he needs to figure out and he must do that alone.

“He’s got to be sure, that’s all,” he says, awkwardly, and Sam shakes his head.

“Dean, Jesus - first of all, Cas _is_ sure, okay? He’s so sure it’s painful to be around you guys. And also - this is not the 1950s! You’re not going to mar his reputation, or get him pregnant, or - wait - you’re not, are you?”

Dean almost kills himself when his beer goes down the wrong tube, and he chokes and splutters as Sam collapses against the couch, laughing his ass off.

“Oh, that would be _great_!” he says, and he’s clearly demented and no brother of Dean’s at all.

“No, it would fucking _not_ ,” Dean says, now redder than the damn carpet. “Shut _up_. He can’t - can he?”

Sam must have recognized the expression of Dean’s face for what it is - a sudden case of nerves - because he instantly sobers up, leans forward to grip Dean’s knee.

“You’ll be fine. He cares about you, Dean. You couldn’t screw this up if you tried.”

He gives Dean’s leg a slight nudge, and Dean stands up, a bit uncertainly.

“And you’ll call Eileen?” he asks, trying to regain the lost ground.

“Not tonight,” Sam says, looking down; but then he adds, “Tomorrow. I’ll call her tomorrow, okay?”

“Didn’t she say she had a case two states over?” Dean asks, setting the empty beer bottle down on the desk.

“Dude - did you - did you go through my _phone_?” 

“All I’m saying is, she’s close by.”

“God, you’re such an _asshole_.”

“Yeah, get some sleep, Romeo.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Dean can’t help it. He smiles at that, and he keeps smiling as he walks down the empty corridors - it must be almost morning by now, he thinks, vaguely - and makes his way back to the roof. Because, fuck, this talk with Sam - Dean’s not a huge fan of talking, but this was actually _good_. Dean had never realized how much the full truth of it had weighed down upon him - that shit he had to do as a kid, mostly, but also those other things about Jess - they’ve sort of been inside Dean’s head forever, and Dean always felt it wasn’t his place to say anything, that Sam would kill him, or, worse, walk away, if he’d even _suspected_ Dean was thinking about the thing that way. 

But apparently, he doesn’t want to kill Dean (not very much) and he won’t walk away (or not very far away, at any rate).

And what Sam said about Cas - yeah, Dean sees it. Of course he does. He’s not _blind_. He’s been holding back all this time because - 

Hell, he doesn’t even _know_ why. And it doesn’t matter. This day has been so damn long and so full of weird, unfair shit - Dean knows exactly what he wants right now, and he’s wanted this too fucking long to wait for it any longer.


	7. Consisting Entirely of Good Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _La rêverie a ses morts: les fous. N’oubliez pas ceci: il faut que le songeur soit plus fort que le songe. Autrement, danger. Tout rêve est une lutte._ \- Victor Hugo
> 
> (Daydreaming has its victims: those who live with madness. Never forget this: the dreamer must be stronger than the dream. Otherwise, danger. All dreams are a fight.) 
> 
> Favourite soundtrack: _Never Let Me Go_ , main titles (composed by Rachel Portman).

But, of course, things are never _that_ easy, are they? Dean has conned his way in and out of literally _hundreds_ of one night stands, but as he steps through the door leading to the roof - as he takes in Cas’ form, and relief swells inside his whole body, because, well, it’s not that Cas doesn’t keep his word, but Dean had sort of feared that he’d be gone by now, or something - he realizes none of that is going to work. He’d had a vague notion of just walking up to the damn guy and - kiss him, or something, but, yeah.

(He feels the same way he did with Robin that first time - she’d come to his room and sat down on his bed, even though it didn’t make any sense because everybody had been outside and Nathan’s bed had been right there, a perfectly sound choice, and instead - so Robin had walked in and sat right down, way too close to him, and Dean - he’d looked down, seen her hands on the bedspread - the clean nails, the slightly ruined skin - cats and trees and that one fight with Debra, Dean knew, because he’d known her _that_ well, even after a few short weeks - and he’d just seen it happen inside his mind. It had been so _real_. He’d seen it, over and over again: his own hand move over hers, their fingers fitting together - her skin would be slightly warmer than his, because she’d just been outside, Dean had heard her, playing with the twins and shouting at Mike. So, yes, Dean had seen it all unfold, but still, he hadn’t taken her hand, because his capacity to see the future ended right there: with his hand over hers. He didn’t know what would happen next, and that had scared him to death. She would expect him to kiss her, and he’d never kissed a girl before - what if he did it wrong - what if she _laughed_ at him? And what if - maybe they would stay in the room a bit longer, and she would allow him to touch her breasts, and, _God_ , there was a whole world of terror in awe in the thought. Because Dean had been thinking about it, of course he had. He’d seen her bra once - Robin had taken her shirt off because they’d been caught in the rain, and even if they’d ran all the way to Sonny’s, they been drenched through, so Dean had given her one of his t-shirts as they’d waited for the storm to pass - it had been one of the few awkward moments between them, because Dean had glimpsed, and he wasn’t supposed to, a bit of blue lace and he’d spent the next hour trying to talk and talk and talk about anything - Sam and Metallica and Gunner Lawless - so his dick would behave, and in the end he’d had to just sit on the floor with his legs up against his chest because a stupid part of his brain kept shouting, _Imagine licking her nipple through that lace - just imagine that_. And the rest of it - sex - God, Dean had wanted it so very _much_ \- but he’d had no idea what to do, and how to make it good for her, and what would happen next - he hadn’t heard from Dad in weeks, but it was way too optimistic to think he’d be able to, what? Stay here and finish high school and marry Robin and forget about ghosts and demons?

 _Right_.

So, no, Dean hadn’t done anything. Thank God Robin had decided she couldn’t wait any longer - she’d just smiled at him and touched his face and kissed him, and later -

Yes, thank _God_.

But since Robin acted first, Dean has never learned how to do this with someone who actually matters. She’d been the only one - before Cas, that is - because Cassie and Lisa - that had been fun, and if it had evolved into something else, the something else had come later, and Dean had -)

So Dean can't do it, and he doesn’t move. He just stares.

Cas is beautiful in this light, and he’s also, so very clearly, not human. He’s still sitting in that weird way - his legs dangling in the water, his pants half wet - but now he’s leaning back on his elbows, and he’s looking up at the sky, and there is something Dean can’t quite read on his face - joy, perhaps, or maybe some kind of sadness. Which, well - on humans, those two things are usually easy to tell apart, but Cas - he looks like he’s remembering something very nice, and also realizing that memory is now just a memory, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Dean hopes that has nothing to do with him, or Heaven; that it’s just something so far away from them it can’t hurt them any longer, like a flower that has long gone extinct, or a city now turned into rubble and dust - a place nobody even remembers except for his angel, right here and now; a weird, unknowable, endearing creature now gazing up at the sky and smiling at it.

Inevitably, Dean’s eyes follow the line of Cas’ jaw, the dip of his neck. Cas’ skin is way too pale, and the soft light of the pool is dancing on it, making it seem both warmer and colder at the same time; an otherworldly thing - a kind of half blue, half orange glow which contrasts very starkly with the stupid clothes Cas is wearing - those ordinary pants, the shirt, the jacket, and a trench coat he apparently can’t live without. Dean had sort of imagined it - he hadn’t liked to see Cas in that stupid hoodie, or even in the Gas-N-Sip uniform, because those things had been proof of how weak and vulnerable Cas actually was; but, on the other hand, he’d sort of pictured it, and how could he not - Cas wearing jeans, Cas wearing, perhaps, one of Dean’s rock t-shirt, the dark colours bringing out his blue eyes, and -

“How is Sam?” Cas asks now, and Dean manages not to react at the sound of his voice, but it’s a very close thing.

Because of course Cas knows Dean is standing right there. He’s probably heard Dean, or sensed Dean, the second Dean has come out of Sam’s room. 

Cas is still leaning on his elbows, his head tipped back, and Dean suddenly wonders why Cas hasn’t said anything for the last few minutes. Was he being coy? Not that Cas _could_ be coy, even if he tried, but he _has_ to know by now Dean likes looking at him, and damn, he _does_ look good in this light. 

Or maybe Dean is getting the wrong end of the stick, as usual, and Cas was simply giving him space - he knows Dean needs his time to decide what to say, and he’s surely heard the fight Dean’s just had with Sam, so.

“Fine,” Dean says, still standing there; and then he has to amend, because, yeah, that's not so true - yet. “Better,” he adds, and now Cas turns to look at him, and whatever Dean had wanted to say next - something about Jess, probably, and also Eileen, what a tough lady she is and how embarrassing Sam is around her - is kicked right out of his head when Cas’ eyes find his.

 _She mimicked you to perfection_ , Cas had said, _but I’d recognize your soul anywhere_.

And also: _A soulmate is someone you choose, not someone who’s forced upon you_.

They’ve been dancing around it for so long Dean doesn’t even know how to stop moving. And, just like it happened with Robin, what terrifies him is not the physical stuff - even though that’s a line, and crossing it would change _everything_ \- but what comes after. There is nothing he can offer Cas. Nothing at all. He’s weak and mortal; just a man, and not much of one. And if they kiss tonight, then what? Will Cas even understand what that is about? Will he expect Dean to - to -

“If you want me to keep out of your thoughts, you shouldn’t think so loudly,” Cas says, so softly Dean almost doesn’t hear him, and what does that mean?

God, is Cas implying that he’s reading Dean’s mind? Or that he’s trying not to?

“Sorry. Long day,” says Dean, passing a hand through his hair; and then he finally steps forward, as carefully and warily as if he were walking around death runes, and not over perfectly ordinary tiles, and somehow he doesn’t stop until he’s standing by Cas’ side.

“What are you looking at?” he asks, for want of something better to say.

“You,” says Cas, seriously, in that voice he now also uses for irony.

“I can see that, dumbass,” says Dean, rolling his eyes. “I meant, you know? Before?”

Cas looks at him for another second, his eyes hesitating on Dean’s mouth before turning upwards again.

“Just the Great Bear,” he says, pointing, and now he’s focused on something else Dean feels safe enough to actually sit down, though the tiles are fucking cold and his clothes are still wet and it’s not an ideal situation by any means.

“It’s not true, is it?” he asks, looking up as well. “That those are people, I mean. Or a bear, or whatever. That they were turned into stars.”

Cas shakes his head.

“No. They’re just stars. Some flowers used to be people, but stars are just stars.”

“What?”

Cas smiles, a bit sadly.

“Only _some_ of them,” he says, as though that makes it better, but Dean finds he has nothing to say to that, so Cas goes on. “Hyacinths, for instance. Gods always tend to go overboard when they are upset.”

“Really, _what_?” Dean asks again, a bit because, what the _hell_? and a bit because talking about anything that’s not them sounds like a good idea.

“Hyacinthus was the prince of Sparta, back in - well. Before the war. You wouldn’t know.”

“The fucking _Trojan_ war? No, I wouldn’t know.”

“I didn’t mean to imply you’re uneducated. I was simply saying - it happened such a long time ago, there is no point in trying to measure it.”

Dean glances sideways at Cas, then, and he’s struck, again, by just how _alien_ Cas looks. The Trojan war, for Chrissakes. It’s not like he doesn’t know Cas is really old, but -

“Apollo was - attracted - to Hyacinthus, and he killed him. By mistake.”

Dean shakes his head.

“And then what, he turned the guy into a flower? Aren’t hyacinths those blue things that look like dicks?”

 _Lisa had them in her front yard_ , he’d been about to say, but, yeah, mentioning Lisa right now - maybe not the best idea.

Cas’ smile widens.

“It’s the thought that counts.”

Dean is already half turning away - he’s taking in the place around him to distract himself from the cold and from the weight of Cas’ presence - when Cas adds, in a voice that’s pure innocence and seriousness, “And dicks look kind of nice.”

And Dean has to laugh. Once he’s recovered from the half heart attack and a blush so severe he almost self-combusts, that is.

“Okay. So we’re doing this,” he says, once he can talk again; and he leans forward on his elbows, then changes his mind, shifts one inch away from Cas.

“I think it’s time, yes.”

How can Cas look so damn _serious_? How can he just be there, all relaxed and happy, when it’s colder than Satan’s butthole and they’re about to come clean to each other about fucking everything and decide - oh _God_.

“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” Dean says. “I’m freezing my balls off, here. Not exactly conductive to rational conversation.”

Cas pushes himself up, and now they’re sitting side by side, Cas’ legs still in the water, Dean’s crossed right on the edge, even though his stiff jeans make it really uncomfortable. Somehow, Cas’ left hand ends up very, very close to Dean’s thigh.

“First, I don’t think a rational conversation is what we need here. Reason has little to do with any of it. And second, you have an entire pool of warm water right in front of you - if you’re cold, you can just -”

“Yeah, nice try. That’s not happening.”

“What’s not happening?”

“Dude, you’re not getting a striptease. I know I don’t have much dignity left, but -”

“I wasn’t -”

“Weren’t you?”

Dean looks down at Cas’ fingers, splayed open on the tiles, then up again.

“Okay,” Cas says, and now he seems a bit sheepish. “Maybe I was. A _little_. But, Dean - I told you, remember?”

Dean doesn’t even need to think about it. The memory - Cas’ fierce gaze, his pale skin streaked with red and dark blood - Cas saying, _I’m staying. But only if you want me here._ \- yeah, kind of hard to forget. The whole thing, in fact, has been playing on loop inside his brain for the past few weeks, almost turning Dean's entire head inside out.

Dean clears his throat; even considers to tell Cas to just go the fuck ahead and read his mind, or something, because that’s how much he doesn’t want to talk about this, but then he remembers there are several things inside his mind he doesn’t want Cas to see -

(Cas moaning under him, his eyes closed, his mouth seeking Dean’s, blindly - desperately -)

\- and tries to soldier on instead.

“Look, I told you I want you here. And you know what that shifter looked like. That’s it, man. That’s it,” he says again, because Cas isn’t saying anything.

“But you’re not happy,” Cas says, in the end, and it’s annoying how _still_ he is, and the fact his hand isn’t moving closer is frustrating as hell and -

“I told you, I’m freezing cold,” Dean tries to say, but the dismissal doesn’t come out right.

Cas seems to consider that for a moment. Dean feels his gaze on himself, warm and heavy, and keeps his own eyes on the water, quiet and friendly and flickering with lights, because he really can’t do both at once - _talk_ about this and _look_ at Cas. It just doesn’t work.

And then Cas speaks again, and it all goes to hell.

“No, it’s not that. Is it me? You don’t _want_ me?”

The question was so unexpected Dean doesn’t know what to do with it, so he does nothing. He keeps staring at the water, his cheeks burning, and occasionally says stupid things like _Man_ and _It’s not_ and _What?_

“I know you’ve been with men before, by your own choice,” Cas says slowly, as if reading from a book that’s somehow unclear, the ink smudging the words here and there, “but I could try to find another vessel, if -”

“ _No_ ,” Dean says, way too quickly; he turns to look at Cas, but Cas is so focused, Dean can’t hold his gaze, so he shakes his head instead, trying, and failing, not to be weird about this, because, well, so Cas _knows_ , has known all along, in fact, that Dean is into men - so fucking what? That’s kind of the point here, after all. “I mean - this is you, buddy. I wouldn’t - you’re - fine.”

 _God_.

Dean can't believe he just said that - _You're fine_ \- that's so lame he can't even - Jesus, could he sound more like a thirteen-year-old? It’s _embarrassing_ , is what it is.

“Is it because I’m a seraph, then? Do you want me to become human?”

Again, Dean is hit by the question as if by gunshots. He glances at Cas, wide-eyed.

“ _What_? No,” he says, at once, and it’s the truth - Cas’ Grace is his heart and soul, and Dean would never, _ever_ ask him to give it up.

“What is it, then?” Cas asks, unconvinced, and he looks so damn _hurt_ that Dean grits his teeth and just does it - looks down first, but Cas’ hand is still there, only one inch away from Dean’s thigh, and Dean - he does it quickly, without thinking too much about it - just moves his own hand over Cas’, kind of laces their fingers together.

And it actually feels pretty good. Not earth-shattering, or dangerous, or anything.

“I’m just - this,” he says, shrugging. “What you see - that’s what you get.” 

“I _like_ what I see,” says Cas, but Dean doesn’t turn to look at him.

He can’t.

“It’s not _enough_ ,” he says, instead. “I mean - you touched my _soul_ , man - and - I can’t even _see_ you without my eyes burning out of my skull.”

Cas turns his hand around, then, holds on to Dean’s more firmly.

“Would you like to?” he asks, after a long silence.

“What? To die?” asks Dean, glancing at him, and yeah, sue him, he was going for a joke, fucking again, but Cas is so serious it doesn’t work.

“To see me.”

Dean licks his lips.

“I thought - I don’t know. Can I?”

Cas frowns.

“If you were anyone else - but we are bonded, Dean. I put my hand on you, and that left a mark. I think that, if you wanted to, you could see me.”

They look at each other for a moment longer.

“Then, yes. I want to. Of course.”

Cas nods, seems to steel himself.

“Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“You need to look with your _soul_ , Dean. That’s the connection between us - your soul and my Grace.”

So, yes, things are turning gay now - very gay - but whatever. 

Dean squeezes Cas’ hand.

“Don’t fry me, okay?” he says, and Cas nods again, almost too politely, and Dean really hopes the thing isn’t a possibility, and Cas actually knows what he’s doing, because it’s too late to back out now.

Not that he wants to.

So he closes his eyes, and waits.

At first, nothing happens.

And then -

Dean is standing up, now, which is really weird because he can feel his own legs, knows they’re still crossed in front of him - he's still sitting down on the tiles - can feel the wet jeans uncomfortably tight around the knees, and - but he’s also standing up, and Cas’ hand in his is not a hand at all, just a sort of warm light - Dean looks around, even if, well, it’s not like he has eyes, or anything - and the weird thing is, nothing has changed - there’s the pool, and the soft porn lights dancing under the water, and there they are, he and Cas, sitting side by side as they’ve done countless times before today - Cas is looking at the water, and Dean sees himself - and, Jesus, that’s _weird_ \- he sees himself glancing at Cas, and thank _God_ he can’t see his own face from here, because he’s absolutely certain he’d look completely _whipped_ , and Dean Winchester doesn’t do whipped, and then -

“Dean.”

Cas is standing in front of him, and he’s also sitting down by the other Dean. The difference is - those other two figures, they look like - a painting, or something. _That_ Cas isn’t moving, and that’s hardly new, but the other Dean isn’t moving _either_ \- he’s not even _breathing_ \- and now Dean sees that, he realizes what else has been bugging him about their surroundings: everything is completely _still_. The water looks like you could walk on it, and there are no sounds, no wind - at some point during the night the snow has stopped falling, but there are still snowflakes whirling around, blown off trees and roofs; except now they are suspended in mid-air, and it’s both beautiful and frightening and also -

“Don’t worry about that. Keep your eyes on me.”

Yeah, Dean doesn’t need telling twice, because Cas is - different. It’s still him, of course - trench coat and suit and messy hair - but then Dean realizes what’s wrong: this is not Cas as he is right now. This is the creature Dean once met in a warded barn. Dean is struck by how much _fiercer_ Cas looks; colder, but not uncaring: simply filled with an unutterable potential of strength and chaos.

“Cas?”

Cas doesn’t say anything, and now he’s sort of changing - it’s gradual at first - his clothes becoming more solid, somehow, more - and then Dean curses out loud, or tries to, because he has no body at all, and he’s just a mess of soul and longing as he watches Cas, who’s much taller now, and different, and wearing a freaking suit of _armour_ , and Dean understands, without even needing to talk about it, that this is how Cas rescued him from Hell, because the armour looks nothing like those he’s seen in books - it’s something shiny and powerful and criss-crossed with runes (protection, healing, nuclear warheads - who even fucking _knows_ ) - and then, before Dean can even process that, Cas changes again, and again - he becomes someone in a priest robe, and then an old woman dressed all in black, and then, for a moment, just a voice, somehow, even if Dean can still see him, and he doesn’t get - doesn’t understand - and here is a man in a silly hat, and a young child with braided hair, and then someone so imposing and scary - two feet taller than Dean - that Dean would take a step back if he couldn’t still see Cas inside him. Because, yeah, maybe Dean is human and can’t see Cas’ Grace, but he can see his eyes, okay, that pale blue colour always on the verge of turning into white light, and so Dean anchors himself on it as time stops and twists around them and even the stars stop wheeling in the dark open sky. Because Cas has walked the Earth before meeting Dean, and Dean is now seeing when and how - he sees cardinals and kings and soldiers - he sees a washerwoman and a girl dressed only in stained and bloody rags, her skin showing through and so pale Dean is sure she must be about to die - and as the centuries go back, and the past presses against his mouth and nose and makes it difficult to breathe, Cas’ hair and skin grow steadily darker, until, all of a sudden, he’s a ebony-skinned man with a gold necklace and linen clothes and then - Dean cries out.

What stands before him now is no longer human, or even pretending to be. It’s a thing of blue flames and wings, and it has to kneel in front of Dean so Dean will be able to even _look_ at it, because it’s huge and - Dean looks up at the shape of its wings, now stretching across the horizon, blotting out the stars - he thinks he hears, very faintly, Cas calling his name, so he lets his eyes follow the wingbone all the way to the creature’s face - and it’s not a face at all, but something exactly like fire - Dean thinks he can sort of understand what he’s seeing, that he’s pinned down the shape of it, but then it flickers and moves and all Dean can do is stare and -

“Dean,” says Cas again, and this time Dean _sees_ him, because those are Cas’ eyes, right there, blue and white and looking at Dean with undisguised fondness.

And, God, this is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

“Yeah,” he answers, even if he has no voice to form the word with, and the creature smiles, although, of course, it’s not a physical smile at all, but perhaps a sense of warmth and comfort and -

The gigantic wings fold upon themselves as Cas slowly stands up; and as he does, he seems to grow taller and taller. Dean is looking up, but he can’t even see the _outline_ of what is now a column of white light and blue fire and devotion and barely restrained violence. It’s just a thing that goes up and up, and doesn’t look like anything at all - not like a man, not like any creature Dean has ever seen - it looks, most of all, like a natural phenomenon - thunder or lightning or the sun breaking through the clouds - but also the kind of scary, alien crap Mulder is forever going on about.

And yet, it’s also _Cas_.

Dean can’t understand how he knows that, how he can even _recognize_ Cas in what is, if anything, basically an explosion of Northern Lights and burning napalm. He just does, though, and he can _feel_ it - can feel Cas’ presence pressing down over his skin, and that’s the only reason why he’s not fucking terrified of this thing in front of him - because he knows, in a primal, superstitious way, that he’s not supposed to look at this, and that this goes beyond his capacity to even conceive of it, and that it could very easily wipe out a whole city, if not the entire world - but, at the same time, it’s - _warm_ , somehow. It’s a weirdass feeling, like standing on the edge of a cliff and the wind is pushing you down but you know you can actually fly, so that’s no problem at all.

And then, then it starts to happen - Dean is still looking up, and, slowly, the stars appear in the sky again as the huge shape of light and flames that is Cas’ true form shrinks and grows dimmer. It’s a slow, difficult, quite possibly painful process, and Dean is not sure it is actually happening until the world reforms itself around him - the frozen pool, the snowflakes, and two still figures sitting down side by side - and all he can see now is a spark of light, no bigger than a firefly; and yet the light is blooming with sounds, and now Dean shivers and blanches, because he _knows_ \- he just _does_ \- that this is - _fuck_ , this is _God_ ’s voice creating Cas; ordering him into being with those sharp consonants and soft vowels Dean recognizes as Enochian - this is _God_ talking, or, rather, Cas' memory of it, and there is such love in His voice that Dean can’t -

But he doesn’t have to. As soon as he blinks, the thing is over, and Dean is inside his own body again, and he’s shaking and shivering and gripping Cas’ hand so tight it must hurt - he lets it go, presses his hands on his own face, tries to breathe, just breathe, because there is no _way_ he’ll ever be able to make sense of what he’s just seen - to conceive, in any rational way, of Cas’ infinite Grace and power. It’s just too _much_.

And it’s after a long time, or so it seems, that Dean actually becomes aware of the world around him; and, specifically, of Cas, still sitting next to him, waiting quietly, his hands on his thighs like he’s some kind of Victorian schoolboy.

Dean glances at him, then shudders. He tries to say something, anything, but his voice won’t come out. He passes his hands on his mouth, on his face, and finds he’s been crying. 

“I’m sorry,” says Cas, very softly, and still, Dean can’t speak.

He just sits there, shivering from the cold, from the unnameable power he’s only brushed against, and he -

And so Cas rambles on.

“The truth is,” he says, and Dean sees, from the corner of his eye, that Cas is not looking at him anymore; he’s just staring ahead, past the pool, all the way to the dark forest and the tree tops only just visible in the half-light (though, for Cas, of course, light is no issue at all). “I could have shown you what I truly am from the very beginning. It would have hurt you, perhaps, like my voice did, but it wouldn’t have - it wouldn’t have _killed_ you. Because of the bond we share, that is. And I was ordered to. When you insisted in refusing Michael, I was told - well. _Any means necessary_ , they told me. They thought you were unusually resilient because of your hunting experiences, but they were sure that if you were to perceive what we truly are -”

And, fuck, so they’d been _right_. No _way_ Dean would have been able to come down from such a trip. Even now, it feels like his heart and lungs have been wrenched out of his body and then stuffed back in without care or reason - and this is _now_ \- after all those years - after knowing Cas inside and out - after _everything_ that passed between them, and this hope, which is now a certainty, that they _can_ , in fact, love each other; that they _do_.

No, if Dean had seen Cas’ true form before all that - without this love they share to shield him from the worse of it - hell, he’d have done anything they asked. _Anything_.

“And I said no. I was the only one who could do it - the only who who could do it without _killing_ you in the process - and I was aware of the importance of approaching events, but at the same time you were - different. Your soul, Dean, I -”

Cas stops again, and Dean knows he’s struggling to put into words whatever it is he’s feeling. He thinks, fleetingly and unwillingly, about that Greek god who’d killed his lover by mistake, and he shivers again.

“I had never seen anything like it. It - called out to me in some way. That’s how I found you in Hell - because you were calling me.”

And, yeah, that doesn’t make any sense - how could Dean have been calling someone he hadn’t even know existed? Dean tries to think about that moment, and finds, as he always does, that he doesn’t remember it. All he knows from Hell is pain and shrill voices and something sweet and sickening which would wake him up at night those first few months, make him gag from the feeling of it. But if what Cas says is true - if Dean had somehow _sensed_ an angel coming for him, if they’d _recognized_ each other from the very beginning - well, then maybe Cas isn’t completely clear on what soulmates are, because maybe choice is only part of it.

And Dean is fine with that.

More than fine, in fact.

“But afterwards,” Cas is now saying, and, again, he’s picking his words as carefully as a ship navigating Arctic waters, “I could sense your curiosity. I knew you wondered. And we were friends by then, and I thought - after everything, you _deserved_ to know. You deserved to _see_ me. I had seen all of you, after all, and I could understand this wasn’t fair - your perception of imbalance; the idea that you didn’t, in fact, understand me, or even see me. But you always did understand more than you give yourself credit for,” Cas adds, glancing at Dean. “You knew my heart better than my own brothers did.”

Dean shakes his head at that, half in denial, half in regret. Now, _that_ is a moment he remembers very well ( _There is a right and wrong here, and you know it_ ) and if he could take it back - hell, he can still feel it inside himself - that surge of adrenaline he always gets before doing something dangerous, or downright suicidal - he remembers Cas showing up, shoving him against the wall, pressing a hand over his mouth - and he’s wondered, more than once, if he would ever take that moment back. Because, of course, Cas switching sides - that had saved all their asses, but it had also _destroyed_ Cas; and it’d been in the loneliness of Purgatory that Dean had first started to think that maybe - maybe he would have done it differently if given the chance. Because, yeah, so Sam would probably have died, and that hurt like a son of a bitch, but alone in that goddamn forest Dean had had a long time to think and remember - to realize all the crap Cas had been through, because of _him_. And that’s why he doesn’t deserve - 

“But I am ashamed to say - what stayed my hand was not fear for your safety, but mine.”

Dean is still half in shock, so he doesn’t understand, not at first, what is it that Cas is trying to say.

“I feel safe with you, Dean,” he finally admits, his voice very, very soft. “And I knew you liked me - like this,” he adds, making a vague gesture at his human body. “I could see the way you looked at me. At the borrowed body that had nothing to do with me. I didn’t understand it at first, but I still liked it - your eyes on me. And I was afraid - I thought - that if you could see me the way I _really_ am, you wouldn’t -”

Cas’ voice trails away, and it’s not clear how that sentence ended - _want to look at me_ , or _want me around_ , perhaps, or even _love me anymore_ \- and it doesn’t matter, because all of those are ridiculous and absurd and Dean can’t -

He shakes his head, but the movement does nothing to clear his thoughts. He feels like he’s been stuck inside a blender - this is both like the worst hangover ever and the clearest he’s seen himself in a long time, because what Cas said - Dean gets it. It’s what he’s been thinking about himself for _years_ \- that, yeah, so he’s okay looking and a damn good hunter, but if people saw his true self, they would just - and maybe it makes sense to think that way about _himself_ , because, hello? Underage prostitution and thieving and actual _torture_ in the goddamn flames of _Hell_ , not to mention all that other stuff he'd done when the Mark of Cain was singing so loudly inside his brain Dean couldn’t even see straight - but it’s unfair _Cas_ should think that way about himself, and Dean won’t have it, because Cas -

“I love you,” he says, and it comes out a bit angry and a bit resentful. “Jesus, how could you _think_ \- the second I put my knife through your heart - it felt - I _love_ you,” he says again, as though it makes sense, because he can’t explain how he'd felt back in that barn - that bout of sudden recognition, the _familiarity_ he’d pushed against so violently, because it went against all he’d been taught to _trust_ Cas, or to _like_ Cas, and yet - and _yet_ -

He’s still so upset he doesn’t realize he’s actually said the words until he looks at Cas properly and sees the expression on Cas’ face.

“And you want to?” Cas asks him, and now things are way more real, and Dean is almost rational enough to be embarrassed again.

“I - yeah. I got no problem with it. It’s just - I’m just me, right? What you see is what you get,” he says, uncomfortably.

“I like what I see,” says Cas again, and then he adds, almost shyly, “and I never wanted anything different. Just you.”

And, okay, so here is the gay part. Dean blushes, hugs himself, because now he’s starting to feel like a human being again it’s suddenly fucking cold.

“You should go inside,” Cas says, after a moment. “Your body temperature is below 97 degrees.”

“Stop _doing_ that. And I’m fine right here.”

Which is not true, but Dean knows this is not over - knows that whatever is supposed to happen, it’s supposed to happen right here. He won’t move from this rooftop until everything is said and done, and if he dies for it, well. He’s died before.

“Then get into the water, at least. I won’t look,” Cas adds, as if he doesn’t know what Dean’s body looks like - not only his muscles and the shape of his nipples and the size of his dick, but everything else - how his blood vessels bloom and web beneath his skin, and the exact texture of his lungs - hell, the guy put him back together, after all.

But, yeah, Dean gets why Cas said that, and he’s grateful for it. Sort of. Because it may be kind of nice, actually, if Cas _did_ look. If he _wanted_ to.

With a frown, Dean bends forward a little, and puts two fingers in the water. And, okay, it’s pure bliss.

 _Goddammit_.

“You sure you won’t look?” he asks, and maybe Cas hears it in his voice, because he turns around, stares at him in that serious way he has.

“Not unless you want me to,” he says, and, okay, so they’re doing this.

And Dean knows how to do this. Those other parts, not so much, but this, right here - he can do it, and if he’s nervous about it, well, he’ll just have to fucking fake it a bit.

Slowly, he stands up, his frozen clothes readjusting awkwardly against his body, and he takes a step back. Cas doesn’t move - he simply tilts his head back as he keeps staring at Dean’s face, and Dean sort of smiles, and he was going for flirty, but he’s feeling so many things - sheer relief, and the remnants of shock, and so much love his heart could burst - that it comes out a bit crooked instead.

He toes his shoes off, then his socks, even if the tiles are freezing and wet with snowflakes. 

Next, he shrugs off his jacket, and then his shirt and t-shirt. He tries, and mostly fails, to do something nice with it, because, well, the fabric is almost cardboard by now and all Dean can do is get the clothes off himself, and fuck being coy about it.

What doesn’t help is that Cas is still staring at him like he did those first few months, when Dean would wake up and find the stupid angel looming over him, his eyes all concerned and puzzled, as if he were trying to solve a very complicated problem and he just didn't know how.

It’d been creepy. Dean hasn’t missed it.

Or, well, not _too_ much. The reasonable amount.

And maybe this time there’s something different - something has shifted between them, after all, and now Dean knows Cas is looking at him because he likes Dean, _loves_ Dean, even, because they’re soulmates or some shit, and even if Dean doesn’t know, yet, if sex is on the table, well, it’s becoming quite likely that it is, because there is something in Cas’ eyes - _something_ -

But, God, it’s _cold_. Dean’s nipples are so hard on his naked chest they’ll probably fall off any second now, and thank _God_ Cas is so damn attractive in this half light, thank God he’s looking at Dean just _right_ , because otherwise Dean would be ashamed to be naked in front of him - cold weather and dicks, never a good combination; but, well, there’s nothing to worry about in that department, not now, because Dean is sort of hard already, and, judging from the way Cas is licking his lips, only just, the way Dean always does when he’s nervous - it looks like Cas _knows_ what Dean wants, or something, and that’s as terrifying as it is hot as fuck and yeah, Dean’s not getting soft any time soon. 

Still, Dean takes his time with it, even if he’s freezing - he undoes his belt, then the buttons of his jeans, and, well - today’s one of those days he isn’t wearing anything underneath, because Cas is just lucky like that. Slowly, he lets his jeans fall down his legs, and then he steps out of them, his hand tugging at his dick, his eyes fixed on Cas’.

For a second, he’s almost afraid Cas won’t get it - that he will ask him why he’s aroused, or insist Dean get in the water straight away, and start blabbering at body temperature again - but, Jesus, Cas _does_ get it. He’s struggling to keep his eyes on Dean’s face, but the task is beyond him - Dean sees the moment happening on Cas’ face, sees Cas’ eyes move down his body, and he stays there and lets it happen, because it’s only fair, after Cas has bared himself so unashamedly and completely for him; and if it’s cold, well, Dean can take it for another few seconds.

And then Cas shifts slightly, as if uncomfortable, and it’s the first time he’s moved at all in the past, what?, six hours or something, and Dean almost smirks.

“See anything you like, cowboy?” he asks, and he forces himself to stay right there, on display, for another ten seconds before walking into the hot water and almost purring in relief.

“I told you. When it comes to you, I like everything I see,” says Cas, deadpan. “You know that.”

“ _Everything_ , uh?” Dean asks, getting hot water over his face and hair, feeling the rivulets turn icy cold on his skin.

“Yes,” says Cas, as though it’s not big deal; but, again, he fidgets slightly, and Dean knows exactly what _that_ means.

“Well, come on, then,” he says, touching himself again. “Don’t make me beg for it.”

Cas looks down, and for a second Dean wonders if he’s taken it too far - if he’s offended Cas, or misread him, somehow - before Cas looks up again, a kind of secret smile flashing on his face, then disappearing.

“Oh, I think you _will_ beg,” he says, in his usual, serious voice, and Dean is suddenly so hard it fucking _hurts_.

And then, seemingly oblivious to this world-tilting announcement (but Dean knows him too well by now, and he can see Cas is not nearly as relaxed as he’s pretending to be), Cas hops into the pool, still completely dressed, and the sight is so absurd and endearing Dean could laugh - and he _would_ laugh, were he not distracted by the imminent prospect of Cas’ mouth on his and Cas’ hands on him.

 _Jesus_.

They’re doing this. They’re _really_ doing this.

“Won’t you?” asks Cas, coming to a stop right in front of Dean, and Dean licks his lips.

“Just get on with it,” he says, and Cas raises one eyebrow, which should be illegal. “Please?”

It was meant as an offhand, ironic thing, but Cas sees right through it.

He reaches out, both of his hands closing around Dean’s face, so delicate you’d think he was holding a damn _flower_ , and Dean barely has the time to register how girly this is, and how little he cares, before Cas takes another step forward and kisses him on the lips.

And, yeah, that thing about rainbow and thunder and your whole body reacting - that wasn’t bullshit. That’s legit what happens when it’s the right person. 

And, God - it’s quite possible Dean will _die_ from this - from the rainbow and thunder and the rest of it - his eyes snap closed, but he doesn’t need to see to find Cas’ unruly hair, and the hard line of his back - he’s not surprised, not really, to find Cas is now naked as well, but it still sends a shock of live current through him, because touching Cas like this - Dean’s left hand moves down Cas’ back, vertebra after vertebra, until his finger can brush, only just, against the dip at the base of his spine, and Cas actually sighs inside Dean’s mouth, his own hands sliding around Dean’s waist as he holds on to Dean so strongly Dean is sure he’s going to find bruises in the morning.

The thought turns him on even more, and Dean licks at Cas’ lips, mouths his jaw, the shell of his ear. 

“ _Dean_ ,” is all Cas says, but Dean gets it; trusting in the fact Cas is steady and so much stronger than he is and will be able to keep a clear head so neither of them actually drowns, he gets closer to Cas and sort of half sits on his lap, hooking his heels on the back of Cas’ thighs, and, yeah, he might have overestimated how steady and clear-headed Cas _actually_ is about this, because when their dicks brush against each other, Cas breathes in sharply and almost loses his footing -

“Hey. Hey, I got you,” says Dean, but, of course, he isn’t doing much of anything - he’s just hugging Cas, sort of, his right hand in Cas’ hair, his left arm curled around Cas’ neck, and it’s not a matter of _getting_ anyone, it’s a matter of _giving_ , which means that, all of a sudden, Dean is not worried - giving is something he knows how to do, and he’s been waiting fucking years for this, and -

“Cas?”

“I’m here,” says Cas, adjusting Dean’s weight more securely in his arms and dipping his head against Dean’s neck when the movement brings them in contact once again.

But, well, it's simply not enough.

“Come on,” Dean says, turning his head and kissing Cas’ hair. “You know what I want. Don’t make me spell it out, man.”

“I don’t know what you want,” says Cas, his voice a bit muffled, his words as light as feathers against Dean’s skin.

“Well, fucking take a look then,” Dean answers, and, okay, maybe he could be more polite about this, but, Jesus, Cas is wet and naked against him, and surely Dean must be thinking so loudly that Cas should have no trouble understanding him?

Thought _thinking_ is not, perhaps, what this is about; as Cas has said, this is not about rationality; it never was. This is just them - two beings so different from each other they were never supposed to meet in the first place, let alone being bound together so firmly and tightly that no one and nothing - not the Apocalypse, not the most powerful curse in existence, and not even the last divine power remaining on this Earth had been able to pry them apart. This is _them_ , and it’s _always_ been them, and when Dean feels it - the tentative push of Cas’ mind against his own - he welcomes it and lets it happen and smiles against Cas’ hair as he feels inside his very soul Cas’ slow surprise turning into curiosity, and then longing.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Dean just moves against him, making him gasp again.

And when Cas finally does it, it’s plain perfect, because their minds and souls are still one, and Dean feels _all_ of it - he feels Cas’ teeth against the skin of his neck, and Cas’ finger breaching him, but he also feels, in a way that should be weird but actually isn’t, Cas’ racing heart beating inside this human body he’s forcing himself into (for Dean); he feels the taste of his own skin, the slight coppery feel of blood, because, yeah, Cas is overenthusiastic and Dean is loving every second of it; and he also feels the secret warmth of his own body, he feels how ready Cas is to just _do_ it, and how he hadn’t known, not really, not until right now, that this was something that could be had, that Dean would ever choose him, fully and unreservedly, and this breaks Dean’s heart - he can feel that as well, now, all those jagged pieces moving around inside his chest, poking holes in his skin, making him hurt and bleed. And Cas, of course, can feel it too.

“Are you -” he starts to ask, but Dean dips his head down and kisses him.

“I want you,” he says, against Cas’ mouth. “I _want_ you, and I’ll kill you with my bare hands if you ever forget about that, okay?”

“I - are death threats customary during sexual relations?” Cas asks, and he’s so clearly teasing Dean bites down on his lip to shut him up.

“Just remember that. And get the fuck on with it, okay? Please?”

“You said you wouldn’t beg.”

“I’m not begging, I’m just - _fuck_.”

Yeah, a second finger breaching him - that shuts him up right away. Dean throws his head back and looks at the dark sky above him and feelings overwhelm him once again - Cas’ fingers inside him and Cas’ body so damn solid and _real_ against his own and - God - Cas lowers his head, and Dean can somehow see what is going to happen before it does - he sees, sort of, Cas thinking about his nipples - feels, again, the two sides of it - Cas’ mouth on him, and also the enticing feeling of the hard nipple against his own lips, his own tongue -

He can’t help cursing at all of it, because it should be weird, okay, but it’s not - they just fit together, body against body and mind against mind, as if anything else were unthinkable; as if they were created, not as separate beings, but as one and the same, and they’ve just now found each other.

“ _Please_ ,” Dean says, again, and later, he’ll be embarrassed about it, because he’s always had this grand ambitions, to be the one teaching Cas about sex and stuff - except, well, there’s hardly any teaching involved, because Dean is so needy and out of his mind he can barely -

And then it’s actually happening - Cas is easing into him, inch by inch, and - _God_. And Dean can feel how this is making Cas feel - there’s surprise, again, because this is so much more than he expected, and also gratitude, again - Dean will have to swat it out of him - that Dean actually wants him, because - there’s a sudden shift of thought, like a shadow passing over a lake, and Dean is almost drowned by a pain so deep and bitter he can’t breathe for a second, and he realizes, as he’s tightening his arms around Cas, that he’s experiencing that moment after the battle one more time, only this is from Cas’ perspective - he understands, finally, how lost and hopeless Cas had been in that moment - Lucifer’s blood on his blade and hands - how that sentence had come out despite himself - _I’m staying, but only if you want me here_ \- how _scared_ Cas had been that Dean would say no, because, fuck it, they are so different and they barely speak the same language and they’ve been through so much and in that moment, finally free of Amara’s uncaring devotion, Dean had felt too broken to ever love again, let alone be there for Cas in the way Cas deserved it -

It’s a blur of colours and words for a second, but once reality takes hold over them again - once Dean realizes all of that has now passed, and that they are here, together, because they want each other and - _God_ \- none of it _matters_ anymore. Cas seeks out Dean’s mouth like a man lost in a desert, and then, following Dean’s murmured encouragements and, mostly, the loud sound of Dean’s mind, which is now a mass of need and want, he picks up the pace, closing his arms more firmly around Dean and half standing up in the water - the air is cold as knives on Dean’s exposed skin, but Dean hardly feels it - so he can slam inside Dean over and over again, making him gasp out in pleasure as he hold on to Cas’ neck and hair for dear life - the feeling is so intense, in fact, that for the longest time Dean is _everything_ \- he’s himself, Cas’ dick deep inside his body, his own dick brushing against Cas’ stomach, and, oh, _God_ \- but he’s also Cas, made thoughtless and empty and yet full to the brim by the weight of Dean here, in his arms - and he’s everything else Cas becomes when he loses control like this - he is the wind and the snowflakes and the water itself, and he sways and twirls and sings out a simple song of joy and wide spaces; and he is the trees in the distance, can feel inside himself all those years of patient growth, and that constant struggle to be both sunlight and dark earth; he is the quiet shapes just starting to wake up, and he is the rosy light of dawn now inching, slow as poured honey, over the Eastern mountains. It is too much, and not enough, and just right, and it is only the sudden, devastating wave of pleasure crashing down on him that forces Dean to come back to himself as he cries out against Cas’ hair and spills all over his stomach; and Cas breathes against his neck as he comes as well, his arms strong and secure around Dean despite this new feeling now coursing through him - the human side of love, something so deep and sharp and dangerous it’s no wonder, really, that God reserved it for his favourite creation.

“I love you too,” says Cas, when he can speak again, and Dean just laughs.

“Yeah, I figured that,” he says, nuzzling against Cas’ hair.

“Good.”

They just hold each other for another moment, breathing a bit unsteadily against each other's skin; and then Dean pushes his nose against Cas' cheek and smiles.

“Sam said it’s embarrassing to be around us.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Cas asks, his thumbs now tracing small circles on Dean's lower back.

“Don’t know, don’t care. All I know is that it’s about to get _more_ embarrassing. You just wait.”

“Whatever you say.”

Dawn is really breaking now, and since it’s November, it means it’s really too late for them to be naked in the water any longer. It's a new day, and someone could come up any minute.

“Don’t worry. I jammed the door, just in case.”

“You - hey, get out of my head.”

Cas shifts Dean’s weight in his arms, and Dean is briefly upset at the loss of their physical connection - he feels wrong and empty and also a bit weirded out now there’s no strategic reason for Cas to keep hugging him - but Cas doesn’t let go.

“As you wish,” he says, and this time, Dean feels - well, it’s Cas’ mind stepping back, in a sense, but it’s really unsettling and unusual, like someone pulling on his hair but doing it very, very gently. “But I hope we can do this again.”

“How’s tonight?” Dean asks, and then he bends down, kisses Cas on the lips, feels Cas smiling against his mouth.

“Tonight seems fine. And what are we doing until then?” he asks, as Dean pulls back and starts to disentangle himself from Cas, checking, in the process, that he can actually _walk_ again, because he’s not so sure about that.

“Sam’s girlfriend is working on a cursed painting in New Haven,” Dean says, and he doesn’t realize - will only remember once they’re on the road, and Sam is grumbling about not riding shotgun and threatening to get his own car if this is the way things are going to be from now on, because he’s six feet four inches and he won’t be happy in the back seat just because Dean and Cas want to hold hands and _I'm family, after all_ \- that Cas actually said _we_ \- that he finally accepted Dean _wants_ him there, permanently, as part of whatever it is they’re doing; hunting for now, of course, and maybe something else in the future - a car shop or a bar on the seafront or even kids and a house to fix. 

It can be anything they want, really, because the world is whole again and Dean is now completely himself - more so, in fact, than he’s been in a very long time.

“Are they together, then?”

Dean grins.

“Oh, if I’ve understood even a single thing about that chick, they’ll be together by tonight, don’t worry.”

Cas smiles as well, and Dean can’t help it - he just bends forward and kisses the corner of his lips before turning resolutely away and climbing out of the pool, shivering and cursing as he tries to put his clothes on.

“Could you do something about this?” he says in the end, gesturing at his jeans, which by now are not even recognizable as a piece of clothing - just a blue mass of dried water and resentment.

And Cas was still in the pool, probably enjoying the spectacle of a butt naked Dean getting into a fight with his own trousers; but, well, that’s the perk of dating a supernatural creature - not that they _are_ dating, because, well, it may have been their first time, but the thing goes much deeper than that - as soon as Cas snaps his fingers, they’re both standing by the door, completely dressed, and Dean is warm and comfortable and also, he suddenly realizes, hungry as hell.

“Come on,” he says, but what started as grabbing Cas’ hand to drag him downstairs ends up in full-on snogging, and things are starting to get real interesting again when -

“Oh _God_.”

Dean whips around - Sam is standing on the threshold, his hand still on the door handle, but there’s only a second of uncertainty in his eyes before something else glitters inside them - the beginnings of that same _stupid_ teasing Dean has been enduring since fucking forever, because little brothers are the absolute _worst_.

“You guys are _gross_ ,” Sam says, crossing his arms on his chest. 

“ _You_ ’re gross,” Dean says, but the thing doesn’t have any bite in it, mostly because Cas’ hands are still on his ass, so.

“You should get a room.”

“This was a private place until you butted in.”

“Not it wasn't. There’s even a sign here, and everything,” says Sam, gesturing at the door, “ _The pool is open to everyone. Please refrain from inappropriate behaviour_. I hope you did,” he adds, sanctimoniously.

“Did we? I don’t remember,” says Dean, looking at Cas again.

“I cleaned up,” says Cas, in his usual deadpan voice, and Sam actually groans.

“ _TMI_ , man,” he says, but Dean is barely listening to him.

He steals a kiss from Cas again, ignoring his brother’s gagging sounds behind him; basking, instead, at how easy this is; how natural. He’s kissing a man in front of his brother - he’s kissing _Cas_ in front of his brother - and he couldn’t care less. And what helps, of course, is Sam’s obnoxious behaviour - all that tutting and eye rolling can barely mask how damn happy Sam is for the both of them, and how eager to up and go, because, yeah, them kissing is not a big deal and there’s stuff to do - getting the hell out of here before someone comes knocking about the damage in the room and their fake badges, and getting a decent-size breakfast in a place which serves something more than greasy this and greasy that, thank you very much, and then drive on to Connecticut, because, Dean knows this just by glancing at Sam, Eileen has messaged again, and Sam can’t wait to be there.

And that’s why Dean sighs and decides to be a responsible big brother, once fucking again, hoping the little shit will be grateful for fucking once, and takes a step back from Cas, starting to walk towards the door instead.

“I thought you’d jammed the door?” he asks Cas, glancing back at him over his shoulder.

“There is a time to lock doors, and a time to open them,” Cas says, portentously, and Dean hears Sam huff out a reluctant laugh in front of him, but laughing is the last thing on his mind right now, because Cas is fucking _right_ \- maybe this is a door they couldn’t open before, but it’s a good thing that shifter came along and broke it the fuck down, because what just happened between them - talking and seeing each other for the first time and just _being_ with each other - well, it all has been a long time coming, and now he has it, Dean will fucking _keep_ it.

Shaking his head at Cas, he turns and follows Sam down the stairs; and if he’s ridiculously, girlishly glad to feel Cas’ Grace push slightly against his soul, making him warm and tingly all over - well, Sam doesn’t need to know it. And Dean may not have that power, but he’ll be sure to show Cas, quite possibly this very evening, the various _other_ ways humans use to show they love someone beyond rhyme or reason.

“I call shotgun,” says Sam, distracting Dean from these dangerous thoughts, and he gets a shove for his troubles.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he says; and then he adds, “Hey, it’s ass or gas, okay? So, unless you decide to put out -”

“ _Jesus_ , why do you always have to be so -”

“I’m just saying - when’s the last time you paid for -”

“It’s not like you’re _paying_ for anything, all our money is stolen anyway -”

“Keep your voice _down_ ,” Dean hisses, because now they’re in the lobby.

There is no one around, though, and, this time, even the glittering baubles on the ceilings and their fairy land of silver and gold and fragrant pine branches - well, even that doesn’t look so silly anymore.

Which means that sex was so good it made Dean’s brain drip out of his ears, or something.

Or maybe he’s just happy. Which is all shades of weird, considering only yesterday he woke up hangover and bitter about everything and almost completely hopeless and now -

But, yeah - as they all step through the door and into the frozen world outside, and Sam starts a discussion with Cas about Japanese lore and Dean glances up, to where is still one star to be seen, very bright, against the rosy sky, well - Dean has to just own to it - this is it. As unlikely as it seems, he’s actually _happy_. And, what's more, he has a feeling he will be happy for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So, the past two weeks have been incredibly demanding (but: I also got to meet an _actual_ secret agent - not that I can either confirm or deny this, obviously), which means it was really, really good to stare out of the window from time to time and remember this story was actually out there, waiting for me. And, as always, knowing that people like my writing, which basically functions both as an addiction and as a coping mechanism, is beyond words. Thank you very much to everyone for kudos, bookmarks and comments.
> 
> Next up: I am taking part in the _Destiel Reverse Bang_ with a wonderful, wonderful artist, and I’m attempting something a bit lighter, with some humour and breaking of the fourth wall and Cas’ wings (the actual thing, feathers and all, not metaphors and stuff).
> 
> Also in the works: something short and fluffy about texting.
> 
> And probably coming at the end of April: a new chapter of my long fic, _Season 11_.
> 
> So, again, thanks for reading! I hope you have a good day or a good night or whatever the sun is doing in your part of the world. :)


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